OpenAIR@RGU

The Open Access Institutional Repository

at Robert Gordon University
http://openair.rgu.ac.uk

Citation Details
Citation for the version of the work held in OpenAIR@RGU:

IRVING, I., 2013. Curating as practice and profession: an

exploration and definition of a contemporary independent curator.
Available
from
OpenAIR@RGU.
[online].
Available
from:
http://openair.rgu.ac.uk

Copyright
Items in OpenAIR@RGU, Robert Gordon University Open Access Institutional Repository,
are protected by copyright and intellectual property law. If you believe that any material
held in OpenAIR@RGU infringes copyright, please contact openair-help@rgu.ac.uk with
details. The item will be removed from the repository while the claim is investigated.

Curating as Practice and Profession:

An Exploration and Definition of
a Contemporary Independent Curator

Iain Irving


A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements of the
Robert Gordon University
for the degree of Master of Philosophy



June 2013










The curator had set up his office in a small wooden cabin on the edge of the village fields. The cabin office was fully
insulated and had sustainable energy panels. It was also wired up for communication with HD broadband linked to an
ecological server. Inside the office, which was part library and part seminar room the atmosphere was warm and
relaxed, a place to step back and think intelligently about connecting and other concerns. There was no dogma, but the
service offered an openness, which directed the client towards a variety of ideas - from craftivism to blogging,
musicology to design, visual thinking to the visual arts - that would galvanize a solution for their curatorial concerns.
He was there most days either to meet face to face, or by email via his blog. We were able to ask for advice on
all things to do with the curatorial, take part in workshops and seminars, attend special symposiums and events, as
well as presentations of projects and exhibitions but initially we needed advice on how we should understand and use
this service.
I am here to help you to make connections in your everyday
life, in work or play. They can be philosophical or practical interests they
can be physical or intangible outcomes. My service is one of being
creative, researching knowledge and of collaboration. Consider it a
public service, like a plumber who unblocks the drains, like a roofer who
mends the holes, like a computer geek who makes your laptop come alive
again, he said.
Okay but how does it work? It sounds religious or at least a bit shamanistic.
Not at all, more mindful than anything, I am here as a
curatorial mentor. I have experience, knowledge and skills of curating
and its now my chosen role to share them with the community and to
help people make useful connections for everyday life.
Sounds good, we need this





Continues

Acknowledgements

This is for Judith, Leon, Ben and Hester.

I would like to thank Professor Anne Douglas, Dr Allan Watson, and Dr Andrew Patrizio for their
supervision, guidance and support in this research.

I would also like to thank my assessors Dr Sophie Hope, Professor Paul Harris and Franois
Matarasso and all my research collaborators, participants and colleagues.

Contents

Abstract

p. 5

Introduction

p. 7

p. 12

p. 20

p. 22

The Cultural Intermediary or The Curator as Cultural Midwife

p. 29

Chapter 1.
Models of an Independent Curator:
Harald Szeemann, Matthew Higgs and Hans Ulrich Obrist

Chapter 2.
Theoretical Framework

The Social and Field Theories of Pierre Bourdieu

Chapter 3.

Chapter 4.
Independent curators in Scotland:
Context, review, analysis and findings

p. 34

Conclusion

p. 44

Reference List

p. 48

p. 50

List of Illustrations

p. 52

Appendices

p. 55

Bibliography

Appendix 1.

A Survey of Independent Curatorial Practice in Scotland

Appendix 2.

Oak Trees and Fountains curated project, Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire

Appendix 3.

p. 81

Where is curating if it is not in the Institution? DART Seminar

p. 121
4

Abstract

Keywords: Curating, Contemporary, Independent, Creativity, Practice, Profession, Bourdieu,
Social and Cultural, Language, Metaphor.


(Research Aim) This research sets out to explore and define a Contemporary
Independent Curator and his/her practice. This type and method of curating activity occurs in a
cultural context by an individual who practices (mostly) outwith a cultural institution.
Independent curators can be described in essence as wild spirits (Schumpeter 1952 p. 340) and
this research considers the cultural and creative values and opportunities that such a
practitioner can bring to artists, communities, industry and audience experiences through their
creative ideas, projects and activities. The acknowledged changes in contemporary art practice,
the broader sites for exhibiting artworks, the changing nature of collaboration between artists
and curators and the development of the broader creative and professional practice of the
curator has triggered this important research.
(Research Objectives) My objectives in this research are to make explicit the implicit
tacit knowledge involved in the practice of curating, to distinguish between forms of curating
that are institutionally bounded and new forms that seek to work between institutions, to
characterise the practice of the independent curator drawing on historical as well as current
experiences of this form of practice.
(Research Methods) Originating from an enquiry of my own curatorial practice, this
research journeys through essays on the mapping of the recent histories of the independent
curator (Szeemann, Obrist, Higgs these curators have been identified as pioneers of
contemporary curating and have had creative and experimental practices both in and outwith
the institution), it explores the metaphor of the practice of the independent curator as a cultural
midwife/cultural intermediary, in an attempt to capture the essence of curating. It analyses
findings from a survey of current independent curators based in Scotland conducted as part of
the research.
(Research Methods) Although this practice is identified as an individual and independent
one, it is not practiced in isolation from others; therefore the social and field theories (thinking
tools) of Pierre Bourdieu are adopted as the key theoretical underpinning for the research.
Bourdieu is selected from other key theorists (eg. Adorno) because he traces the influence of a
persons power and capital through their social, cultural and professional context. Other aspects
of Bourdieus work, importantly his concern with class and education in the appreciation of the
arts, are not judged to be relevant to this research. Bourdieus framing of the individuals
emergence through key influences (social, cultural, professional) underpin the analysis of the
case studies of the historical models of the independent curator and to the empirical research
5

conducted with active independent curators in Scotland to identify whether these theories are
still valid to the (local) currency of the practice, or that the practice has evolved to adopt a new
and enhanced approach in what it is and what it does.
This research will benefit and enable potential curators to identify the specific
dispositions of the practice and profession of an independent curator. It will benefit the cultural
and creative industries by acknowledging and supporting the significant creative, cultural and
economic value of the independent curator. It will also benefit audiences of art in making explicit
the experience, integrity and consideration undertaken by this approach to curating. This
research will also be of interest to educators and students of art and culture enabling them to
learn from the critical and creative decisions involved.
The research is situated within a wider academic and professional discourse on the role,
function and value of creative practices, including contemporary curating within business,
economy and society.

Introduction

My own curatorial practice has evolved since leaving Art School in the mid-1980s until
now. I would consider what I do, as a creative practice, as curatorial - I sense it - I feel it - I know
what it is. The context of my practice initially was one of paid employment, where there was a
job to be done. This evolved to being given, by others, opportunities in creative and professional
decision making which in the last 12 years developed into a practice, which is autonomous and
self-directed. The research developed in this dissertation grew from the desire to identify and
define this thing called the independent curator. It initially seemed straight forward enough to
reflect on my many projects and therefore determine what it is. But through further critical
research it became more difficult to pin down. Therefore the following questions were
determined to frame this research and give it focus:

-

What is the practice of an independent curator?

What are its methods and what effects does it make on creative practice and professional
context?

What social and creative issues influence the practice of independent curating?

What are the current creative and critical methods of independent curatorial practice in
Scotland?

What are the tensions, contradictions and benefits in curating activity that define a
current independent curatorial practice?

My research methodologies developed from an initial reflective study of my own
curatorial practice and a literature review on the subject of independent curating. Through this
review I was able to determine the scope and detail of the practice, both historically and in a
contemporary context, which had been published. (eg. Althuser 1994; Greenberg 1996;
Marincola 2001; Thomas 2002; Obrist 2003/8; Rogoff 2006; Mller 2006; ONeill 2007;
Hoffmans 2007; Martinon 2012). From this review and a study of models of practice by
independent curators, I was also able to identify my theoretical position through sociologist
Pierre Bourdieus thinking tools (habitus, field, doxa, capital). Bourdieus selection was arrived at
through a review of literature on theory in the Arts (others considered were Theodor W.
Adorno, Max Hockheimer and Alexander Dorner).
Bourdieus wider theories focused on the relationship between education, class and the
capacity to appreciate art, but his theories on the dispositions of the individual became a clear
route for my research. Bourdieus project became the main theoretical structure through which
I was then able to identify the social, creative and professional dispositions of an independent
curator. This theoretical structure and knowledge of practice enabled me to develop a
questionnaire and discussion, which was conducted through a current Scottish based curatorial
7

platform called Framework. This primary research was crucial in enabling me to identify the
capital, habitus and doxa of a current independent curator, as this would determine what is an
independent curator and a predicted evolution of the practice.
The curators activities and presence in the contemporary art world has been described
as no longer only being able to eyeball with a connoisseur gaze (Rugoff 1999 p. 112), which
seems to infer that the practice of curating has changed, the (private and) public image of the
curator is no longer just one who has one unique and elite skill therefore it seemed in the past
decade things were changing. The practice of curating was something other than just relating to
the institution of museum or gallery. Therefore there was a need to identify the first
independent curator, the pioneer. In time the figure of Harald Szeemann appeared. At the time I
was unaware of his life and practice, which now seems astonishing to me. Having worked (but
not studied) in exhibition making and curating while he was alive and working, I had no
awareness of his work. I doubt that it would have made any difference. I had other role models
to admire Nicola White, Andrew Patrizio, Robin Klassnik, Richard Demarco, and Mark Francis
for example - these were important mentors for me. But usefully this research has enabled a
longer view of its histories and through my literature review I became aware that the
documentation of the history of curating is a relatively new category. Hans Ulrich Obrist and
others have identified this fact and attempted to fill the gap with volumes of interviews with
curators (importantly just before many passed away it seems) as well as the publication of
critical texts and essays on curating (eg. Thomas 2002; Obrist 2003/8; Rogoff 2006; Mller
2006; ONeill 2007; Hoffmans 2007; Martinon 2012). There was a sense of catch up required for
me but also for curating itself. There was an important need to document and configure the
practice.
The difficulty in defining the independent curator seemed to be that the people who had
been doing it had therefore already defined it. They were what it was.
To define independent in this context is therefore important. Someone who curates
independently takes care of his or her own practice. They develop and produce curatorial ideas
and concepts through a practice and fulfil these projects in collaboration with other exhibition
makers (artists, curators, project managers, fundraisers, marketing managers, technical
support, writers, designers etc). They can be self-employed or employed in an independently
run and funded organisation. This notion of independence therefore also applies and is inherent
to the collaborations and organisations in which the curator practices. An independently run
organisation holds the same ethos as the independent individual. Their mandate is to challenge
the traditional ways of thinking and seeing exhibition making and hence develop new
alternative experiences and methods of practice while being supported by the funding bodies to
do so. (eg Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, CCA, Glasgow, DCA, Dundee). These situations are
therefore an independent practice. But this independence can also be drawn in and controlled
8

by the influence of power (from authorities) through conditions of funding, environment, status
and public requirements.
Therefore the context of independence in this thesis is one, in which the agents adopt or
are given the mandate to seek, instigate, develop and resolve projects through their social,
creative, economic and professional abilities and skills.
This led to identifying that the social and field theories of sociologist and philosopher
Pierre Bourdieus as they would enable a theoretical understanding of an individual in the
context of the arts, and therefore to the practice of the independent curator. Bourdieus broader
relevance to the research helps frame an artworld with the issues concerning not just the
individual but also the overall effect on the social, economic and political contexts that the
curator works within.
Having considered Bourdieus theories and through his writings, other significant
models started to appear which made direct links to the curator. His term cultural intermediary
(Bourdieu 1984 p. 359) (see also Hesmondhalgh 2006 and Negus 2002) (or what I might also
metaphorically term as a cultural midwife) seemed applicable and could well be the curator -
someone who is between things. Between art making and art management. Between artists and
audience. Between artists and institutions. Between the object and the word or the middleman
as Andreasen and Bang Larsen (2007 p. 20) stated. It also related to a profession, a good job title
and so had a purpose and agenda. With further reading, particularly of the work of Theodor W.
Adorno, Keith Negus and David Hesmondhaugh, my research began to connect to the cultural
and creative industries, and therefore led to identify the practice of the independent curator as a
profession.
The need for currency in the practice led my research to participate and work with a
Scottish based curatorial platform called Framework, organised/curated by Kirsteen MacDonald
who had contacted me as she felt there were parallels in her project and my research, so I signed
up as a member. Through the activities of Framework, which included writing workshops,
curatorial seminars and presentations hosted at various venues across Scotland such as Stills,
Edinburgh, GOMA, Glasgow and CCA, Glasgow, it enabled me to integrate myself within a group
of other self defined independent curators all based in Scotland, This was a significant move
allowing me to tap into and understand the current methods and practices of the independent
curator in Scotland.
With this I developed a survey and data, which was conducted with these specific group
members (as well as others curators from the Scottish arts community), which based its enquiry
on questions composed in relation to Bourdieus theories to determine the issues of background,
motivation, influences, skills and experience, improvisation and experimentation, value,
sustainability of practice and effect to the respondents curatorial practice. In essence my
research was looking for connections, comparisons and differences to models of curatorial
practice. I sensed that Bourdieus theories spoke a certain truth about the power and influence
9

that had always (and still does) exist in the artworld, and with that the influence of the curator,
whether independent or within the institution. So this survey helped to identify if this was still
the case, but if not, what has changed? How do practitioners now define their practice and
therefore what is it today?
While this research was carried out, my own versions of curatorial practice were tested
through essays, writing, visualisations and exhibitions in curating which allowed me to
improvise and experiment with the practice. This work, which included my research blog entries
and discussions (see Irving 2009/13) on curating, art and culture; curated projects with
Limousine Bull Art Collective at Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire and Shadow Curator role and
project at Deveron Arts, Huntly, Aberdeenshire; catalogue text for Hurricane Lamb/Grays
School of Art research project at Duff House, Banff and the integration of my research into my
teaching role at Grays School of Art through lectures, seminars and writing workshops,
therefore became useful conduits and platforms for my research. Although this activity was not
central to my research it enabled a time of creativity and therefore intuitive outputs.
A further opportunity to test out my ideas and proposals for a definition of curatorial
practice came through the presentation and discussion at Grays School of Art/RGU DART IDEAS
Research event in May 2012. This allowed me to curate the seminar called Free Curating:
Where is curating if it is not in the institution? for which I presented a paper on curating as
metaphor. Andrew Patrizio was invited to respond to this along with a contextualising
presentation of the Atlas curatorial project based on the Isle of Skye by its director Emma
Nicolson.
In this research event and outputs, the essence and identification of curating was
attempted, where curating was articulated as something between things and at the edges of
things, performative, overlaying, intimate and invisible. This discussion also importantly
promoted the use of language and metaphor as ways to understand the methodologies of
curating. This specific material is presented as an appendix (see appendix 3) to the main text as
it is still developing research but important to highlight as a dimension for understanding the
practice of curating.
I sensed through my research that there were two means to identify curating; one was
through its profession the doing, while the other was through the conceptualizing of ideas and
language, practice the being. The metaphor also seemed key; it helped to see what was not
clear. The use of metaphors in the curatorial was already apparent from exhibition titles to job
titles trickster (Czegledy 2002 p. 109), flneur or activist (Kowalski 2010) for example.
In concluding this thesis I will discuss my findings and draw together the ideas and
arguments from this primary and secondary research to make a proposed working definition of
an independent curator.

10

This research finally concludes with a short narrative printed on the inside covers, which
fictionalises perhaps a new profession for independent curating in society. It proposes a role,
which plays on an entropic view of curatorial practice.

11

Chapter 1
Models of an Independent Curator:
Harald Szeemann, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Matthew Higgs

(3.1)

The Swiss curator Harald Szeemann (3.1) (19332005) has been notably identified as
what could be defined as the first independent curator, an inventor of a profession (Mller
2006 p. 6) and the genitor of the genre (Derieux 2007 p. 8), while other contemporary curators
- Hans Ulrich Obrist and Matthew Higgs have become the hyper active offspring and are highly
sought after as pioneers of contemporary curatorial concepts, exhibitions and projects. In
analysing the character and the trajectory of these particular curators dispositions we can
determine a number of things in relation to practice and profession. A line of enquiry here is to
ask whether the independent curator needs to be more creative, freethinking, opportunist and
maverick in their curatorial practice than the curator in an institution, and therefore asking what
are the issues to the practice in terms of creativity, sustainability and power? Perhaps these
issues and dispositions might be discovered through analysis of the historical and contemporary
contexts of the practice and profession.
Derieux suggests that it is now probable that the art history of the late 20th century is
not focused on artworks but on a series of exhibitions (2007 p. 8). This makes us aware that the
rise of a new art profession - the independent curator is significant and has made an effect on
this history. An analysis of this individual, role, practice and status of the independent curator
within the contemporary art world is one of discourse and interest but is also of some dispute
and suspicion. Walter Benjamin suggests that the curator is like a smuggler and Felix Feneon
proposes a catalyst (Derieux 2007 p. 8).
Exhibition making, either in galleries and museums or in non-traditional spaces has
become the environment that we experience art. Unless they are a collector and have their own
personal museum, we see our art in these public spaces. Exhibitions have become the medium
through which most art becomes known. The public perception of a curator is of a custodian of a
12

collection, in a museum or gallery. They take care of items, they link, interpret, and present to
the public, assisting and provoking ideas and encounters. A curator of this profession and
intension exists in all the museums in the world but the practice of a contemporary curator now
also requires skills in social media, interpretation and management skills as well as fundamental
creative and technical skills. It is an ongoing debate to define the practice and profession of the
curator particularly in the art media. The American art magazine, Art Lies has even modestly
proposed in 2008 the death of the curator (Gupta 2008); so in time a realization of this practice
and profession is required. As the methods of art making and presentation have changed it is
pertinent to question and redefine the practices of the curators.
In 2005, the photographer Balthasar Burkhard recorded the archive of Harold Szeemann
(Derieux 2007 p. 32-38). Burkhard had assisted Szeemann at the Kunsthalle in Bern by
documenting the exhibitions that he had curated. The archive photographs show intense
shelving, stacking and some organisation of the documents that are created in exhibition making
(3.2). The materials look like they have been initially organised into cardboard boxes and given
letters and numbers, in an attempt at some sort of method, but in time the piles of books,
catalogues, models and images, have become more precarious and chaotic. There are also the
trophies of exhibition making in the artworld. The images of Szeemann with artists, the tree of
luggage tags from every airport in the world, collected, hung and displayed, the mountain
sculpture, gifted paintings and the quotes and statements as inspiration hanging in lines from
the ceiling. Looking like art in itself but taking 50 years to produce.

(3.2)
There is a visible passion, an intensity of doing and making things happen. Things must
have happened to create such material. Dave Hickey has usefully suggested that somebody has
to do something before we can do anything (Marincola 2001 p. 128). They present the
obsessiveness of a fan, a lover of the practice, and the environment and people within it.

13


(3.3)

Szeemann curated his first exhibition, Painters Poets / Poets Painters, at the
Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, in 1957, at the age of 24. As director of the Kunsthalle in Bern four
years later, he transformed the institution producing twelve exhibitions a year, culminating in
the pivotal exhibition Live In Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form: Works-Concepts-
Processes-Situations- Information, in 1969 (3.3). In exhibiting works by 70 artists, including
Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Eva Hesse, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Long, and Bruce Nauman, the
premise of this exhibition was about opposition to art, to form, to society, to the institution
the art reflected the tone and activities of society of the day. The exhibition was in essence a
gathering and an event. The institution became an artists workshop where process and
experimentation took the lead, both in curating and art making by taking risks for art, curating
and the viewer. Szeemann suggested that Live inside your head meant nothing less than
intellectual cooperation in the forming of the attitudes; it asked the exhibition visitor to take
part in the art process (Mller 2006 p. 20).
The opposition, adaptation and questioning of the institutional structure enabling the
artists to develop innovative art practices and ideas is one of Szeemanns major contributions.
Szeemann curated this change. However, significantly Szeemann instigated conflict within the
institution, by taking these risks.
According to Szeemann the exhibition came about only because,
People from the Philip Morris Company and the PR agency Ruder and Finn came to Bern
and asked me if I would do a show of my own. They offered me money and total freedom
(Obrist 2008 p. 86-87).
In the exhibition catalogue the company saw a clever marketing parallel with their own
policy,
14

As businessmen in tune with our times, we at Philip Morris are committed to support
the experimental (Obrist 2008 p. 87)
In consequence they suspended sponsoring any further contemporary art exhibitions,
perhaps due to the adverse Swiss and International press, which came with the Szeemann
exhibition. Dismayed by the negative reaction to his creative and intellectual efforts with the
When Attitudes Become Form project from the governors of the Kunsthalle Bern, the Swiss
media and the general public, Szeemann resigned and moved on and so by default to become the
first independent curator.
With this challenge he immediately set up his The Agency for Spiritual Guestwork and
co-founded the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) in 1969,
curated Happenings & Fluxus at the Kunstverein in Cologne in 1970, and became the first
artistic director of Documenta in 1972, reconceiving it as a 100-day event, which as a format,
continues today.
Szeemanns exhibition making continued until his death in 2005, with further unique
exhibitions such as Bachelor Machines in 1975-77, initiating the first Aperto at the Venice
Biennale (with Achille Bonito Oliva, 1980), The Quest for the Total Work of Art in 1983-84,
Visionary Switzerland in 1991, the Joseph Beuys retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 1993,
Austria in a Lacework of Roses at the MAK Osterreichisches Museum fr Angewandre Kunst,
Vienna in 1996, and the Venice Biennale in 1999 and 2001 (Mller 2006). Szeemann was a
classic child of his time where his left wing politics and hippy counter culture attitude are
apparent and are reflected in his titles, concepts and ideas for exhibitions.
Szeemans resignation from the institution was not just a risk in life and work, but also
an important decision for curating. It would in time affect the future practices and professions of
the curator. In challenging and adapting the principles of the exhibition by supporting new
artistic practices, such as conceptual art and the Fluxus movement, he considerably influenced
the production of the exhibition making by inventing the position of the independent worker:
the curator, creator, and author of the exhibition, and significantly he preferred to call himself an
exhibition maker (Mller 2006 p. 6). In shifting the production of art into environment and the
duration of the exhibition, he remodeled the alliance between the curator and artist. Again
reaffirming the opposition to the establishment of the time but also placing the curator in the
same team as the artist. The curator was no longer of the institute but could be one of
independence like artists, producing their own work from their own obsessions. In particular,
Szeemann is linked to the suggestion that curatorial practice could be considered as an art of
exhibiting (Mller 2006 p. 7).
Szeemann showed proficiency in his work and life, in that he was simultaneously able to
balance personal desires with professional constraints. In asserting his passion and intuition as
a curator, in collaboration with the artists and artworks, he established the independent
curators mtier. Curators now acknowledge his methods as groundbreaking. They enhanced the
15

practice, but importantly the support of the institution continued. As the only employee of his
Agency, and curating only one exhibition he perhaps reluctantly continued to collaborate with
the Swiss institutions. Significantly, the director of the Kunstmuseum in Zurich also employed
him as a curator, with independent status. He even had a salary, office space and access to
technical support. But this collaboration allowed him to evolve an independent practice that he
continued to pioneer (Irving 2010).

If this is acceptable, then the independent status is about creativity, economy and self-
sufficiency, it is about independence of structure, thought, creativity and the traditional role of a
curator. The institution therefore encouraged the independent curator to develop and practice.
The consequence of the perceived death of the curator even in the early 1970s has in essence
opened up new pathways and possibilities in which the practice and profession could emerge.
Within his archive it can be noted that Szeemann conserved for himself the materials of
curating that would sustain his practice from the public to the private pursuit. This is a
significant issue as in this move from the public to the private; the curator retains his intellectual
capital but also requires organisational and economic assistance to continue the practice.
Therefore, the understanding of this specific capital and expertise is fundamental to the practice.
The tools of the trade; such as mailing lists of artists, dealers, owners, transport companies,
funders, charities, critics, magazines, designers, writers, etc; information on budgeting,
contracts, loan forms. This knowledge in the commercial sector is guarded and protected but in
the public sector, this knowledge is an open source, it requires circulation and digestion to make
the practice and profession work effectively but with care.

Moving from analysising the independent curator through the example of Szeemann, I
will now consider the practices of two current independent curators, Matthew Higgs and Hans
Ulrich Obrist.

(3.4)
16

Matthew Higgs (3.4) (born 1964) curatorial practice could be said to have gone full
circle with the integration of art and music in his current role as Director of White Columns in
New York. His trajectory in the curatorial field over the past 20 years has led him to play a
number of creative and professional positions such as artist, writer, publisher, promoter, gallery
director, academic, commentator, dj and curator. His initial trajectory from a North England
University art education and exiting into a world of self-initiated and self-produced post-punk
cultural activities (circa 1985) could be considered as attitude affirming and would be carried
through into his professional work. Initially his projects were highly experimental and
improvised versions of what he observed, through magazines, exhibitions and knowledge from
colleagues. As in all creative practices there requires to be a promotion and then an acceptance
by the field players that what someone is offering, plays the game. Higgs, as an individual is a
willing player. Building these roles in a constant manner helps to develop a trajectory as a
contemporary art professional. He makes experimental projects, which interest him self and
thereby developing the cultural and creative field. His continual realigning of his curatorial role
through mediated production and location enables him to influence and promote contemporary
art worldwide.
This shifting has taken him from artists collectives (City Racing, London) and self
publishing (Imprint) into the establishment of curating with the British Art Show 5 (2000) for
the Hayward/Arts Council England, Protest and Survive (2000) for the Whitechapel Gallery,
London then into the US art establishment of Watts/California College of Arts and Crafts and
currently as Director of White Columns, New York.
Higgs was a product of Thatchers Britain of the late 70s/early 80s when culture
changed again with the advent of punk and its more politically advanced and experimental
cousin post-punk subcultures, which were a major influence on youth culture. Producing what
was seen as radical and subversive to the status quo while also producing significant
metropolitan and regional cultural figureheads such as Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood,
Tony Wilson and Peter Saville for example. Taking a lead from counter culture aesthetics,
methods and movements, is similar to Szeemanns experience in Central Europe in the 1960s so
Higgs found and embraced his attitude (shared with others) to inform his life and artistic and
creative production. This attitude of independence, do it yourself and making your own
opportunities (what might now be called cultural entrepreneurship, but definitely not at that
time) underpinned his work.
Therefore there is a significant observation occurring here which points to the changes
and attitudes (artistic, economic and political) in society that the change of creativity, practice
and profession of an independent curator (Irving 2010).

17


(3.5)
Hans Ulrich Obrists (3.5) (born 1968) practice and professional trajectory is similar to
Higgs in terms of motivation and influence. Coming from a more middle class background Obrist
has not obviously embraced the counter cultures like Higgs and Szeemann. Although there is a
beat like attitude to his continual early wanderings from project to project. His own formative
years were during the mid-80s, which was a time of self driven go getting and power seeking
attitude. It could therefore be argued that this is where Obrists individual drive comes from, he
represented the art worker who travelled, had no permanent home, was willing and able to
work closely with artists to develop projects outwith institutions.
Following Obrists Swiss University Economics education he volunteered to help in the
Kunstverin Museum, Geneva working alongside the museum curators. His curatorial practice
has been an interweaving of self-initiated and institutional roles and projects; hence he has been
able to retain his individuality as a well-known curator as well as being accepted into and now a
key player in the institutional (Serpentine Gallery, London) structure. His self-motivation also
appears to be key in his practice, where he has been continually on the move, as did eventually
Higgs, realigning himself within the field. His early association with prominent contemporary
artists (such as Christian Boltanski and Fischli/Weiss who were included in Obrists first
documented exhibition The Kitchen Show (1991) which was in his St Gallen flat kitchen) enabled
him to quickly become a player not just by association but also in his practice as a curator of
experimental exhibitions and publications. This early motivation for the alternative and
therefore challenging projects also included exhibitions in St Gallens Monastery library and in
Nietzsches House in Sils Maria near St. Moritz (both 1992).
From this point over the next 20 years Obrist curated over 150 projects and produced a
significant series of interviews and publications with artist, architects and curators, which he
has declared as an important archive of creative practice. His practice (and life) clearly is a result
of his own intuition and tacit knowledge and how he is able to influence the field with energy,
discussion and collaboration. The danger perhaps is that what has occurred with Obrists
practice and status in particular is that he has become the epitome of the superstar curator,
more famous than the artists that he exhibits. The recent media hype vehicles such as the Art
18

Review Power 100, has created an influential power list in the art world, claimed to be based on
observation not judgement, which Obrist has topped in 2009, and retaining #2 in past years
(interestingly Szeemann at #31 in 2002 and Higgs at #43 in 2010) and therefore has been
embraced into the current societal obsessions with celebrity (Arts Review 2006/9/10). In these
instances it could be argued that the Curator is tainted by the notion of the ber curator, which
then becomes about them not the things and experience. This is wrapped up in this Art power
social status situation (Irving 2010).
From this narrative and discourse we can now start to identify what defines a successful
(both creative and professional) independent curator. Szeemann, Obrist and Higgs have shown
significant signs of the sociological benefits as well as creative and tacit traits.

19

Chapter 2
Theoretical Framework

The theoretical context and structure for my research was initially drawn to Adorno and
Horkheimer theories on the Culture Industry and Alexander Dorners theories of museum
curation, but ultimately Pierre Bourdieu and the more recent Boudeiusean research in the arts
by Michael Grenfell and Cheryl Hardy became significant. These theoretical positions were
investigated, analysed and applied to my research to understand and identify key theoretical
notions occurring in the practice and profession of the independent curator.

Initially the theories and observations of the culture industry by Theodor W. Adorno and
Max Horkheimer were considered as a starting point to understand the initiation and
development of the production of art as an industry, which in essence could be believed to be
the historical timeline of the current interest in the creative industries. Their theory helped to
identify the concept of an arts industry, which was influential on the production of art as a
recognised economy and as an influence on culture. This was conceived in a time coming out of
the Second World War and perhaps there was a need to revitalize culture in a creative and
productive way. They proposed the term Culture Industry (Adorno and Hockheimer 1944)
which they initially conceived as a derogatory term for an art for the Masses which they
considered impure in its pursuit of profit and commerce as opposed to the Arts existing as an
endeavour of utopia, truth and purity and not for mass culture (popular) (Adorno and
Hockheimer 1944). Adorno reconciled his proposition as actually being a matter of something,
that arises spontaneously from the masses themselves (Adorno 1991 p. 98). However, he
further determined that the culture industry was actually worthless as it was uncritical of what
was produced and hence only an ideology and not a way towards quality and worth.
This research was useful in terms of understanding the development of the influence and
power of the culture industry in society and also in relation to my research questions as it
underlines my knowledge of the framework of the industry in providing an important backdrop
to the individual players who, within this research are key to understand and observe.
The research was then drawn to Pierre Bourdieus sociological theories, which seemed
to significantly determine a theoretical understanding of the individual participating in the art
industry. Bourdieus own research into art and culture and significantly for my research his
thesis, The Field of Cultural Production, on art production present notions of sociological
dispositions which propose that an individuals background, education, work, financial status,
social endeavours and connections play important roles in considering how and why an
individual proceeds in this context.

20

It is relevant to understand and consider the importance of Bourdieus theories, as they

not only discuss the individual in the field of art but also pinpoint a significant theory of practice
in individuals. Bourdieus thinking tools (Grenfell and Hardy 2007 p. 28), which determine the
capital, field, habitus and doxa of the individual access this understanding of their position.
I will briefly state the meanings of these terms in relation to Bourdieus theories.
The term capital is generally related to economy and monetary exchange as in the
historical invention of capitalism but in the context of my research it is important to recognise
that Bourdieus use of the term is broader and he has stated that capital in fact defines those
forms of exchange which ensure transubstantiation whereby the most material types of capital
those which are economic in the restricted sense can present themselves in the immaterial
form of cultural capital or social capital and vice versa (Moore 2008 p. 101). Therefore in my
research I can identify capital as the cultural and social knowledge and skills, which an
individual brings to their practice.
Bourdieus interpretation of the term field relates to social space and the interactions,
which happen there. But he didnt just consider this as a convivial image. His use of the term was
to describe, quite metaphorically as an area of land, a battlefield, inter alia and a field of
knowledge (Thomson 2008 p. 68). The identification and metaphor of the field helps my
research to determine the parameters and scale of the environment in which the curator
occupies.
Doxa refers historically to intuitive knowledge shaped by experience (Deer 2008 p.
120) but in Bourdieus terms Doxa is a set of fundamental beliefs which does not even need to
be asserted in the form of an explicit, self-conscious dogma (Deer 2008 p. 120). It connects the
natural beliefs between people with that of field and habitus.
Finally, the term habitus as Bourdieu states is a property of social agents (whether
individuals, groups or institutions) that comprises a structuring structure, this structure
comprises a system of dispositions which generate perceptions, appreciations and practices
(Maton 2008 p. 51). This important concept of habitus will be discussed in more detail further in
my research but this concept and the identification of a persons habitus and dispositions, as
Bourdieu states, (is that) It expresses the result of an organizing action, (and) it also designates
a way of being, a habitual state and in particular, a predisposition, tendency, propensity or
inclination (Maton 2008 p. 51).

21

 The Social and Field Theories of Pierre Bourdieu

The following diagram illustrates the theoretical framework, which has been adopted in
my research. It shows the flow and connections, which are made and discussed, within this
section.
Theoretical Framework diagram

Cultural Studies
interaction between them

Pierre Bourdieus
Social and Field Theories
Field Context :
Contemporary Art
Cultural Industries

the context and social construct making way for the

independent curator to pursue innovation and
progress in the practice

Capital, Habitus, Doxa,

Independent Curator

(Public) Profession and effects

(4.1)

In Cultural Studies, Pierre Bourdieus Social and Field theories importantly recognised
theories of the dynamics between people and groups of people therefore it is appropriate to
apply this thinking to my research. Although his theories are recognised as having close
connotations and identity in notions of class and education, this aspect is not directly pertinent
to my research. Bourdieus theories of the individual and their social and professional
connections are significantly more important to my defining research.

Firstly, I will briefly consider ideas of his social and field theories (field, capital, habitus
and doxa) before relating them onto the context of curating. Bourdieus social and field theories
identify the subjective and objective motives within particular contexts, which in turn stimulates
interaction between them. This interaction is relational and therefore enables agents to define
their position within these contexts or fields.

Bourdieu gives a definition of this notion of working in the field as
22

A field is a field of forces within which the agents occupy positions that determine the
positions that they will take with respect to the field, these positions being aimed either at
conserving or transforming the structure of relations of forces that is constituent of the field
(Bourdieu 2005 p. 30).

The metaphor of the field (such as a football field) helps to capture an image of the
power spaces and the players (agents) within it. The agents, it could be inferred, occupy a
playing position. Each position carries with it different essential qualities and routes for the
agent. The positions that the agent occupies in the field are determined by a number of things,
which relate to the agents capital -

-

Cultural capital from education, experience and recognition

Social capital through networks of advice and support

Economic capital through status and investment

(Grenfell and Hardy 2007 p. 60 - 61).

Agents who have a stake in the field take an objective position but the agents subjective
position in the field is determined by the amount and weight of capital they have. Fields are
constant areas of negotiation, conflict and competition as agents compete to gain influence in the
genre of capital to be most affective in their particular field (Grenfell and Hardy 2007). For
example agents (artists, dealers, curators) in the contemporary art field may use economic and
social capital to have some sort of gain on cultural capital.

Bourdieus significant contribution to social and cultural theory was developed through
his empirical studies of museums, the arts and audiences in his key texts The Love of Art
(1969/91), Distinction (1984), The Field of Cultural Production (1993) and The Rules of Art
(1996). These studies demonstrated how class, education and social origin structure an
individuals experience of culture. In these he identifies the subjective and objective struggle,
which exists in the arts and helps us to identify the power structure (and gaps), which the artist
(or curator) needs to bridge in their practice.

The literary or artistic field is at all times the site of a struggle between the two
principles of hierarchization: the heteronymous principle, favourable to those who
dominate the field economically and politically (e.g. bourgeois art) and the autonomous
principle (e.g. art for arts sake), which those of its advocates who are least endowed
with specific capital tend to identify with a degree of independence from the economy,
seeing temporal failure as a sign of election and success as a sign of compromise
(Bourdieu 1993 p. 40).
23

In conjunction, Bourdieu has also stated that habitus was,

not only a structuring structure that organises practices and the perception of practices,
but also a structured structure: the principle of division into logical classes which organizes the
perception of the social world is itself the product of internalization of the division into social
classes (Bourdieu 1984 p. 170).
This infers that every individuals background and dispositions are structured or ordered
and will situate the individual in their natural habitus.
But to help clarify, Karl Maton suggests that,
Simply put, habitus focuses on our ways of acting, feeling, thinking and being. It
captures how we carry within us our history, how we bring this history into our present
circumstances, and how we then make choices to act in certain ways and not others. This is an
on going and active process we are engaged in a continuous process of making history, but not
under conditions entirely of our own making (Maton 2008 p. 52).
Arguably therefore an agents habitus can be identified by evidence of their ways of
being as well as their previous learning and experience, skills and knowledge, technical and
tactical prowess and by also having a feel for the game (Maton 2008 p. 54). Habitus is therefore
our personal development of thoughts and senses and is the relational structure of our social
world. It links, connects and consolidates individuals and groups of people. It may even curate
us.
-
To briefly illustrate this, I will refer to a project which I curated and managed called Oak
Trees and Fountains in collaboration with the National Trust for Scotland venue, Drum Castle in
Aberdeenshire in 2004 (see appendix 2 for further project material).

(4.2)

There were a number of agents in this project; the curator - myself; the artists - David
Blyth, Janice McNab, Jim Harold and Victoria Clare Bernie; the funders Lorraine
Grant/Aberdeenshire Council and the Scottish Arts Council and the hosts The National Trust
for Scotland. This scenario, on reflection showed a number of areas (fields) in which issues such
24

as negotiation, conflict and competition were apparent, as the agents tried to gain capital for
their own agenda.

This project also evolved the adoption of a non-contemporary art institution (heritage)

as a site to produce and experience contemporary art in the North East of Scotland in particular.
The agents involved were willing to take part in a project which then challenged their own
knowledge, skills and decision making (habitus, doxa, field and capital), it perhaps was inevitable
that issues of conflict and abrasion would come about.

As example
The Curator offered the hosts and funders an expertise and skill of curating, managing
and marketing a project (cultural capital) which was unique to the area and therefore would
benefit their own agendas (economic, social and cultural capital) in supporting artists,
developing a public programme of events and attracting the public audience to the historic site
and its facilities (bookshop, tearoom, gardens, other event). In return the curator therefore
gained the funds (economic capital) and site that would enable the curatorial concept
(contemporary art in a heritage context) to be made.
In my experience most curatorial projects are a constant dialogue of negotiation, conflict
and competition, which tend to become equally balanced and fulfilling in favour of all.
-

Another of Bourdieus structuring principles, that of doxa, which can be defined as
tak(ing) the form of a misrecognized unconditional allegiance to the rules of the game on the
part of social agents with a similar habitus (Deer 2008 p. 122), is also important to consider as a
factor in the creative and cultural field. As with habitus, adhering to rules for an agent limits the
practice and creativity in the field, but however in Bourdieus version of the field, which is
apparent in the cultural and creative fields, agents do not always agree on the doxa or rules.
Therefore if one agent decides to change the rules, the others will need to decide (internally
and/or collectively) on this change of doxa. Within this struggle the agents make use of their
power and capital, to impose the rules that favour them the most. We generally adhere to the
rules of our own game and field that we occupy but to enable change, progress, and development
in the cultural and creative fields, the individual agents evolving habitus (learning and
experience, skills and knowledge, technical and tactical prowess) is the most important and is
defining when they want to influence the field. What I suggest, might be called an enhanced
habitus would refer to the agents creative and intuitive knowledge shaped by experience to
influence the field of practice. Therefore it is apparent that Bourdieus thesis is key to determine
the position of the individual within the creative and cultural field.
Usefully, in summarizing his thinking tools, Bourdieu suggested the following equation
as a methodology to evaluate the field.
25

[(habitus)(capital)] + field = practice

(Maton 2008 p. 51)

Therefore this can be interpreted as practice results from relations between ones
dispositions (habitus) and ones position (capital), within the current state of play of that social
area (field) (Maton 2008 p. 51) - but the variable of an enhanced individuals habitus (intuitive
and creative) influence on the field is also important to consider.

The context and research studies by Michael Grenfell and Cheryl Hardy in their
publication Art Rules: Pierre Bourdieu and the Visual Arts (2007) significantly informed my own
understanding of Bourdieus theories and in my research of the independent curator by
influencing and hence helping to establish a Boudeiusean analysis in this context. Their
particular research applies Bourdieus theory of practice to the fields of museums (Tate, London
and MOMA, New York), painting and photography (Hirst); this demonstrated an understanding
of the symbolic capital, position within the field of cultural production and the trajectory of their
value over time. Bourdieus research method (below) shows an application of a three level
analysis suggesting the structure of the field through the interrelationships of the participants
and institutions.

LEVEL 1. Analyse the position of the field vis--vis the field of power
LEVEL 2. Map out the objective structure of relations between the positions occupied by
agents who compete for the legitimate forms of specific authority of which the field is a
site
LEVEL 3. Analyse the habitus of agents; the systems of dispositions they have acquired
by internalising a deterministic type of social and economic condition
(Grenfell and Hardy 2007 p. 60)

Grenfell and Hardys analysis of the institution was particularly useful to consider in
relation to the capital of the contemporary art institution and therefore in my research of the
relationship between the independent curator and the institution today. Their research makes
conclusions that the high volume of symbolic and economic capital derived from the field of
power (government/private funding) combined with highly consecrated cultural capital from
the art historic field (collection/educational) is formulaic to their achievement and status.
Although they focus particularly on the institution and not the individual their
conclusions found that it was through field interactions of the very same fields culture and
artistic consumption, education, government and commerce that the institutions were founded
still constitutes the habitus of the museums today. Therefore what might be useful to consider in
relation to this point is that perhaps a similar established habitus exists for the curator; I would
26

also propose that a specific range of defined criteria be adopted to determine the field, capital,
(enhanced) habitus and doxa of the individual (independent curator) (see end of this chapter).
It could be argued that capital and power (such as governmental/private funding) is still
the most important factor in determining the sustainability of the art infrastructure and without
this no other fields would be sustainable (Grenfell and Hardy 2007). But I propose that this
doesnt mean that the other important fields (social, creative, cultural and economic) wouldnt
exist and have effect.

(4.3, 4.4)

For example, considering the local root level of exhibition making, art students generally
have no money when they graduate but lots of collective motivation and creativity. They have
developed many useful vehicles for their own and their colleagues work (exhibitions, studios,
public/community work, online curating). The proliferation of current Scottish based
artist/curator initiatives such as Transmission (4.3), Glue Factory, Mary Mary, Studio 41, Panel,
Nadfly in Glasgow; Collective, Embassy Gallery, Sierra Metro in Edinburgh; Generator (4.4), Yuck
n Yum, Fleet Collective in Dundee and recently before their demise, Limousine Bull and Project
Slogan in Aberdeen show that this creativity, motivation and collective purpose exists and in
time produces various models, levels and successes of sustainability. These initiatives can
invariably become the institutions of power and influence but there is a purposeful and
sustainable regeneration of contemporary art practices and professions happening here.

In recent years these Boudeiusean methodological approaches have been applied to
research subjects such as fashion (Entwistle and Rocamora 2006) educational management
(Gunter 2003), globalized policy making (Lingard and Rawolle 2004) and art institutions
(Grenfell and Hardy 2007). However there is no evidence of their application to the practice of
curating. Interestingly, the research by Entwistle and Rocamora on the London Fashion Events
show has parallels to the contemporary art world.

In their findings Entwistle and Rocamora in summary state that,
27


The field of fashion is an elite club, and those that are allowed into it have expectations
they must meet. With access to the event comes the responsibility of adhering to the rules which
creates a hierarchy of players in this ritual theatre, and expectations of performance, language,
and visibility (Entwistle and Rocamora 2006)

This could well be a discussion of a contemporary art event or opening, where the
agents/players enter into a social/professional environment but there being a distinct hierarchy
and rules amongst the curators, artists, dealers and other art workers. It is a ritual being played
out which has very little to do with the actual content of the exhibition itself.

In conclusion to this section I propose that to determine the dispositions of the
independent curator (background, motivation, influences, skills and experience, improvisation
and experimentation, value, sustainability of practice and effect) via Boudeiusean signifiers of
environment/profession (field), individual skills and knowledge (capital) and practice (via
habitus and doxa) the following criteria should be applied. This specific criterion has been
informed and determined byway of Bourdieus thesis as well as factors from my curatorial
research.

An Independent Curator requires

A historical and current knowledge and alliance with the field of power
(BACKGROUND/INFLUENCE)

Recognition in the field as one who curates

(VALUE /INFLUENCE)

A social and professional position in the field

(EFFECT/SUSTAINABILITY OF PRACTICE)

A proven track record of successful (social/ cultural/economic/political) curated

exhibitions and projects (VALUE/EFFECT)

A location in the field where one curates (INFLUENCE)

A relentless work ethic (a way of life) (MOTIVATION)

A creative ability to interweave knowledge, experience and risk

(SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE)

An instinct and ability to change outputs for precision and success

(IMPROVISATION AND EXPERIMENTATION)

These criteria are applied to empirical research conducted with current independent
curators and is analysed and discussed further in this research.
28

Chapter 3
The Cultural Intermediary or The Curator as Cultural Midwife

This chapter further considers the practice of the independent curator in todays context
of institutional power and a socially driven structure of the contemporary art world. The
discussion will determine the position of the curator within a social and cultural context while
also attempting to determine what the work of a curator is and what motivates them to do what
they do. The notion of a cultural intermediary or metaphorically as cultural midwife, is a
position that is significant, but there is also an ambition to identify the practice in its own right,
that it is something which people do, and not just within the confines of the art institution and
service.

The role of the curator, as comedian Stewart Lee recently put it is like someone stirring
turds in a toilet bowl with a stick. If something is being curated it already seems fixed and
decayed (Lee 2011). A stimulating metaphor but is an old fashioned idea of the curator. It is that
of the expert in the museum just shuffling around the collection, trying to breathe life into old
artifacts, just like retelling old jokes. This stereotypical view of the curator, especially from
someone like Lee, (whos observation seems abit predictable) needs some assessment and
reconsideration for today.
In fact Lee is not too far away from the Ancient Roman historical role of the curator as a
public official in charge of various departments of public works including sanitation.
As David Levi-Strauss states,
The curatores annonae were in charge of the public supplies of oil and corn. The
curatores regionum were responsible for maintaining order in the fourteen regions of Rome. And
the curators aquarum took care of the aqueducts. In the Middle Ages, the role of the curator
shifted to the ecclesiastical, as clergy had a spiritual cure or charge. So it could be said that the
occupation of curating - between the management and control of public works (law) and the
cure of souls (faith) - was there from the beginning. Curators have always been a curious
mixture of bureaucrat and priest (Levi-Strauss 2006).
But todays curators are and need to be doing something else. It is said that in times of
austerity, creativity blooms. Creativity is perhaps our default survival mode. If we can be
creative we can help ourselves - it is already having an effect in schools, business, government
and hospitals. The public services have discovered that creativity in the work and learning place
is crucially more economic as well as social and definitely political. Being creative leads us to
happiness and we all want to be happy in our life and work. But what is being creative? Is it
just about making something with your hands? Or is it something deeper such as the merging of
logic and chaos, levels of experimentation and the creation of something new from polar effects.
29

Creativity can be just rewarding to yourself, giving a sense that you have engaged your mind and
body in the activity and maybe share it with others if that matters. Sociologist Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi rejects the classical notion of the creative genius and puts forward that
creativity appears from a particular supportive environment. He argues that creative outputs
appear from individuals who have worked hard over the years to master a particular symbolic
domain such as art (or curating) and are encouraged by supportive individual, groups and
organisations (Gauntlett 2011).
This is interesting, as the core impetus of curating is a certain creativity, which then
needs to be managed and supported to exist and be experienced by the audience. As our
creativity evolves in one direction or another we become an identified expert in the activity or
practice. With the midwifery analogy lurking on the horizon, there is a need to consider how
curating, creativity and connecting can have an effect on the community.
To introduce the term midwife in association with the practice of curating is to perhaps
get closer to the natural awareness of the independent curator while they work in collaboration
with other exhibition makers. The term implies nurturing something into life. A midwife (male
or female) is not seen as the central participant but they are intrinsic in producing the result.
They are experts in this situation and have the tacit knowledge to make certain important
decisions as events progress. Therefore it seemed that this metaphor was very appropriate to
the curator. They have a fundamental role in the development and production of the cultural
product and have the important tacit knowledge and (subjective and objective) skills to employ
for the benefit of the projects.
With reference again to the Oak Trees and Fountains project, which I curated at Drum
Castle, Aberdeenshire in 2004, it could be said that I played the role of the cultural midwife in its
production. In reflection there were a number of births as the project developed and became
public. The concept came from a discussion with Lorraine Grant, Aberdeenshire Arts Officer to
curate a project in collaboration with the National Trust for Scotland. There was some initial
coaxing required in terms of the benefits of showing a number of contemporary artists in the
context of Drum Castle in our discussions with the National Trust. They became particularly
interested in the possible increase in visitor numbers and fundraising, but we also needed to
satisfy them with our past experience and how artists would produce their work for their
environment. Therefore there was a need to trust us as the curators that the work would be
worthwhile and not inappropriate to their own standards and requirements. This was also
important to us as curators to know what our parameters were and how much we were allowed
to do but also as time went on, how these parameters could be pushed to improve the quality
and experience of the project. The introduction of the selected artists was also a situation, which
could be interpreted as midwifery. The artists selected had already accepted through the public
call for artists that their research methods and creative practice would be opened up and made
visible for the context of this project. Therefore our nurturing of the artists to adopt particular
30

sites and materials for their work could already be controlled and guided for the benefit of the
complete project. As their work developed they seemed content to rely on our safe hands to
help them produce their work. In turn when we needed them to produce (or push) visuals,
information, texts, interviews and their finished work they were obliging, as we perceived that
we were on the same team, working together to make things happen. Therefore in this project it
became important that the collaborators of the project worked in synchronization, as a team but
we were also able to step change when required and there was a certain rhythm to its
production. In reflection this natural awareness, maybe is why some projects are more
successful than others, as this notion can be experienced when it goes well.
Bourdieu introduced the term cultural intermediary which relates to his comments on
the new petite bourgeoisie, a new faction of middle-class workers that has grown in size and
influence since the middle of the twentieth century. It refers to those workers engaged in
occupations involving presentation and representation . . . providing symbolic goods and
services (Bourdieu 1984 p. 359).
This term helps in one way to identify and define the occupation and role of a number of
agents within the creative and cultural industries context, who have entered the industry with
personal ambition and with tacit knowledge, creativity and skills. In time they have gained
specific detailed experience, which can establish but in time weigh down their activities. This
term might also direct these ambitions into the status quo, the systems and procedures, which
exist in the production and controlled consumption of projects. Any creativity and invention can
be quickly absorbed into the over-organized and staid mainstream. But there is also a
convenience to the cultural intermediary title, which implies that there is culture to mediate, a
job to be done, which will never end, until culture ends. So the role can be seen as a good thing,
helping to organize and connect the activities, while also becoming a unique conduit between
the producers (artists) and consumers (audience).
There are two ways to consider this idea that the curator is a cultural intermediary - one
that he/she is within the institution and another that he/she is independent or freelance.
Interestingly, Bourdieu also points out that, agents endeavour to produce jobs adjusted to their
ambitions rather than adjust their ambitions to fit already existing jobs, to produce the need for
their own product by activities which may be initially voluntary but aim to be imposed as
public services (Bourdieu 1984 p. 359). The habitus of a cultural intermediary could therefore
be expressed again as in-between production and consumption.
Therefore, what is this significant role of the cultural intermediary, which Bourdieu
identifies? Who is determining that role? Is it given, applied for or is it self-appointed? Bourdieu
points out that this role can be created by the practitioner or adjusted to their ambitions rather
than adjust their ambitions to fit already existing jobs. By producing the need for their own
product by activities, which are maybe initially voluntary, they aim to impose them as public
services, which are then officially recognised and more or less become completely state-funded,
31

in accordance with a classic process of professionalisation.

Negus states that, In Bourdieus formulation, cultural intermediaries are characterized
as occupying a position where jobs and careers have not yet acquired the rigidity of the older
bureaucratic professions (Bourdieu, 1984: 151). Entry into these occupations is usually via
networks of connections, shared values and common life experiences. Gaining access to work is
less dependent upon a meritocracy or assessment and recruitment according to formal
qualifications (Negus 2002 p. 511)
Essentially, the much often repeated statement it is not what you know but whom you
know. Therefore it could be stated that the cultural intermediary/midwife is now an identified
integral position in the gap between production and consumption, where a role can be created
which suits the ambitions (chosen practice, work load, collaboration, payback) and that is in
itself identified as of significant importance in the flow of production to the potential consumer
within its field.
There is hence a shift from a unidirectional model (artist to consumer) to one where the
cultural intermediary/midwife is continually making links, looking for opportunities,
interpreting and articulating the work of the producer to the demand of the client or audience.
Working with these demands brings the creative, economic and social practice (capital) together
where one is interdependent of the other (Negus 2002).
But surely todays cultural intermediary/midwife is one who is not only a creative
problem-solver and team player but that their own practice is their mtier, a way of life. The
importance of their practice to them makes it highly authentic and believable. Most curators
(and artists) would believe that their practice is their way of life, their mtier, or essentially
finding the element in our selves as Sir Ken Robinson has said (Robinson 2010 p. 251).
At this point it should be asked, what understanding does identifying the cultural
intermediarys have on the definition an independent curator? The cultural intermediaries
identity appears to exist not only in the individual but also in a team of players, whose job it is to
carryout various creative, logical and professional tasks. This job description rings true for the
institutional curator, as well as in an independent curator but the independent curators practice
also requires the notion of cultural and economic entrepreneurship.
Helpfully, Pierre Bourdieu has noted that the curators cultural meaning and value to the
making of art and artists: the subject of the production of the artwork of its value but also of its
meaning is not the producer who actually creates the object in its materiality, but rather the
entire set of agents engaged in the field.

Among these are the producers of works, classified as artistscritics of all
persuasionscollectors, middlemen, curators, etc.; in short, all those who have
ties with art, who live for art and, to varying degrees, from it, and who confront
each other in struggles where the imposition of not only a worldview but also a
32

vision of the art world is at stake, and who, through these struggles, participate in
the production of the value of the artist and of art (Bourdieu 1993 p. 261)

Therefore, to progress and sustain a curatorial practice the individual needs to develop
creative models of curatorial practice, not only within the perhaps financially supporting
traditional institutional doxa but ones which stimulate the individual habitus of the curator to
benefit our everyday life in our communities. By planting the practice of the independent
curator/cultural midwife into the heart of our social and cultural communities, the latter could
identify and authorize a legitimate role of the curator, as a catalyst, and one who gives socio-
cultural value to our lives.

33

Chapter 4
Independent curators in Scotland:
Context, review, analysis and findings

In this chapter, with the context of models of independent curators, Bourdieus social
and field theories and the position of the cultural intermediaries/midwifes in mind, my research
methodology will now apply the various strata of interaction via Boudeiusean analysis as well as
factors from my curatorial research, between the capital, habitus and doxa of an (independent)
curator, field of power (position/influence) field of culture (curating), field of location
((Scottish) environment) and field of economy (cultural industries), to create and develop my
research findings in relation to the current practices of independent curators in Scotland.

Context and Criteria

My research survey was carried out following a period of research into the models and
contexts of the independent curator and a study of Pierre Bourdieus social and field theories. To
restate, Bourdieus theory was adopted as a key theoretical underpinning for the research
because of its hypothesis of the influence to a persons power and capital through their (habitus)
social, cultural and professional context.
The survey questions acknowledge the determining criteria of an individuals habitus,
and they were composed to verify the following issues of the respondents curatorial practice -
background, motivation, influences, skills and experience, improvisation and experimentation,
value, sustainability of practice and effect. These issues give details of the respondents personal
and professional context, their perceptions of the motivations, influences and ambitions of their
curatorial practice and their concepts of the value and effect that their practice produces. They
also were asked to respond in agreement or disagreement to my core statements about the
practice of an independent Curator (see previous criteria list p. 28).

The following section states the context and criteria followed by a discussion and
statement of the findings.

The core focus group were a number of individual participants of the Framework
curatorial group (http://framework.parallellines.org.uk), during August and September 2011.
These respondents were considered as the core group as they had all marked themselves out as
independent curators by attendance and participation at Framework. The core group consisted
of 12 people from the group.

34


(6.1)

The survey was distributed to this core group on 4th October 2011. 91% (10 of 11)
responded positively to complete the survey and 45% (5) had fully completed the survey by
21st November 2011.

There was also a second distribution of the survey to individuals who were not part of
the Framework group but who were working in a curatorial position either purely
independently or in an organisation in Scotland, which was of an independent status (i.e. those
whose main funding did not come directly from Government such as museums and major
galleries but whos programme is developed through various funding sources and is therefore
needs to be fluid). These potential respondents were all based in various parts of Scotland
including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Shetland, Orkney, Stornoway and Huntly. This group
consisted of 34 people. The survey was distributed to this group on 11th October 2011. 68% (23
of 34) responded positively to complete the survey and 29% (10) had fully completed the survey
by 21st November 2011. Overall there were 33% (16 of 45) of full replies.

The Framework curatorial group participants were an effective core focus group for this
research as the structure had come together through the identification of a current need to
recognise the diverse, innovative and ambitious practice across Scotland, alongside the lack of a
sustained platform in which to jointly discuss curatorial practice and define this work within a
wider international context. What was clear with the core group was their self-identification as
those who curate and hence were ambitious to make their position clearer within the
contemporary art context, working in Scotland but also having an International standing.
Most were still developing as a curator, mostly being a few years out of higher education
but each one was looking for new opportunities and a new identity for their curatorial practice.
The wider group of respondents were mostly established as curators or exhibition makers. They
had progressed into paid employment after many years of unpaid and voluntary practice
35

primarily because they were excited and motivated to do it. Their motivations were stimulated
from working directly with contemporary art practice, through artists, galleries, and artist led
initiatives. To get to the heart of their curatorial practice my survey questions were strategically
structured around the concepts of field, capital, habitus and doxa to focus on an essence of their
curatorial practice as opposed to the economics of curating as purely as a profession (salary,
employment conditions, structure etc)
-

The following findings have been drawn from the curating survey (appendix 1)
conducted and are reviewed below, for common values and ideas. Following each section there
are concluding statements on each criteria.

Background
Can you briefly tell me about your background, where, when and what subjects have you
formally studied and how did you start your curating?

Most of the respondents were formally educated in Universities and Art colleges in UK
and Scotland. The courses were predominately art practice biased and most went on to do
PG/MA in specific art/curatorial practice. Some had started in art history/ museum/ languages/
cultural studies areas. What stood out was that no one stated any relevant activity that was pre-
higher education having an effect on his or her chosen practice, therefore it could be suggested
that curating like art practice requires an social/ cultural knowledge based approach to be
meaningful with a degree of maturity and experience of the art world and its workings.

Conclusion
Studying a formal Arts Degree and Higher specific Arts/Curatorial
qualifications places the practitioner into a creative and semi-
professional context where curatorial practice is identified and
experienced. Potential curators are intellectually and creatively drawn to
this practice and develop collaborations with other artists during higher
education. This initial exposure to curatorial activity motivates
involvement with self-initiated projects and leads to become more
formally involved with galleries and art projects. There is a pattern of the
curators finding their own element or position through this process. They
become involved in a context of similarly educated and experience
partners, which creates its own environment and interest groups.


36

Motivation
What motivates you to curate and what are the benefits to you personally in curating?

To the majority of the respondents, their curatorial practice began as a necessity; it was
something they wanted to do, transpiring during their courses, such as organising degree shows
and course projects. Some made the early realisation that they didnt want to make artwork but
wanted to realize the work of others in exhibitions and projects. This experience from
organizing student shows, artist run spaces in Scotland and internationally (following study
abroad) seems significant in the respondent continuing or pursuing the curatorial practice route.

Few identified that their practice was called curating at the time. It was art practice or arts
management; latterly more newly qualified respondents used the term curator and were
comfortable with it. It took time for others to make the jump and publicly state that what they
were actually curators, even though they had been practicing curating and producing
exhibitions and projects for themselves and institutions for a time. There was a significant
personal drive for the respondents to develop the ecology of the activity, through opportunities,
formal posts, temp posts or creating own opportunities with other colleagues. Some began to
realize that their art practice was and is now curatorial and made the conscious decision to
declare that curating was their creative practice.

The findings on the motivations to curate and hence what were the personal benefits showed an
overwhelming need to work in collaboration with others, particularly the artist, as this brought
the curator nearer to the artwork. A fixation on the artwork as a thing of value and a source of
knowledge enabled the respondents to discover, and promote an intellectual discourse through
the exhibition/curating process. Many also expressed the enjoyment in the creative and
practical process, the problem solving and logistics of the process. The intellectual benefits of
reaching into a subject and through the curating process revealed new perspectives to artwork,
which were then disseminated to the audience, hence the sharing of the knowledge. Therefore
the key motivations were the creative and logistical processes with the intellectual re-reading of
the ideas of art into something that was a new attitude and experience.



Conclusion
Curatorial practice and the curator is motivated by the closeness
experienced to contemporary art and artists. This closeness or
compatibility manifests as excitement and creative stimulation in being a
collaborator with art as well as being involved in the critical discourse
37

which art produces. This involvement motivates the curator to produce

more encounters whether passive or direct. There is a suggestion that the
curators role is more pro active in developing critical debate than an
artist. The rebirth or unfolding of curatorial projects with attention to
new formats and ways of seeing and experiencing art evolve the practice
and the discourse of art in context.

Influences
Can you tell me what exhibitions/projects influenced you when you began curating and
what continues to influence your practice?

The influences on the respondents own curatorial practice came from personal first hand
experiences of exhibitions and artwork, whether it was good or bad. These experiences have
stayed with the respondent as some sort of marker of creativity, value and the possibilities of
curating and art making. It was also crucial that on-going practice would be improved and
produces enhanced experiences through continued creative development. There was also a
strong influence of recommendations for exhibitions/ideas from artists, friends and peers. This
knock on effect of what is good and bad could create a circular (repetitive) motion of particular
types of projects and experiences continuing to be produced therefore becoming boring, bland
and introverted.

Particular self experiences in various countries with other artists and curators was influential in
creating new ideas and connections. Also important were the use of new formats through which
curating can be viewed and experienced (such as physical and virtual spaces), personal
experience gained from others practices and their ways of thinking, determining new
connections and therefore an understanding of making projects relevant. The need to continue
on from the work and influence of others in terms of creativity and ideas was apparent (hence
creating a history of the practice) but there was significant understanding also in the need to
improve the practice for enhanced knowledge and experience.

Conclusion
The creative and critical practices of others (contemporary artists,
contemporary curators and peers) have major influences on the
curatorial interests of the curators. The need to see, experience and
diagnose others creative and managerial processes, conceptualizing,
methodologies and physical outputs are important in knowing what, how
and why you curate. The territories of experience and influence are well
within the field of contemporary art, where the practice reflects itself
38

through further curated projects. This currency of creative and critical

knowledge is important to sustain in curating further projects.


Skills and Experience
Do you think that you have relevant skills and experience to curate, what do you believe
these to be?

An overwhelming majority believed that they had the skill set to curate. Many learnt on the job,
reeling off the need for skills in research, managing, communication, writing, mediating, funding
etc. Many expressed the need to have these skills, as they are essential, pragmatic and enabled
you to get things done. But a few challenged these and questioned the requirement to have this
skill set acknowledged as such, as this would give way to new methods of production, thinking
and ultimately experience. By determining these predominant skills there was a danger that it
would neutralise the mode of working therefore by breaking these would challenge the
preconceptions of what curating is.

Conclusion
Contemporary curatorial practice requires elemental skills of intellect,
creativity, socializing and practicality. These qualities are gained through
previous work or training but mostly they are learned through
experiences of project making. It is expected that the curator will have
the fundamental skills which make the projects happen but they also
need to display instinctive decision-making and creativity. This is vital to
instil confidence with the artists and collaborators in producing
successful new projects. Knowledge of what is currently happening in the
field is essential for motivation. Current curators are confident with their
skills but look to the artist as someone to give this acknowledgement. The
ambition for improved intellectual and academic skills are evident as this
is a way in which the traditional modes of operation can be challenged
and overtaken.


Improvisation and Experimentation
Does your practice involve methods of improvisation and experimentation, if so how and
why do you implement such methods?

39

There was an overwhelming agreement that curating has high levels of improvisation and
experimentation to achieve creativity and new formats of outputs. This practice of improvisation
and experimentation led to new methods of process, which were thought to produce risk and
unexpected results for the better. As in art practices the need to be open and initially uncertain
so that creativity will be produced/result was important. But there must also be a sense of
control in the openness particularly in the institution, as it is less open to the potential of failure.
This method of creativity supports the artist in their creativity of art making and ultimately the
curatorial experience. It helps to bring out the artists intentions and to escape the normalised
formats and methods of a curated project. There were strong ideas of the journey or the bespoke
nature of the process of projects as it was important to break from the comfortable solutions,
thereby leading to a more interesting working process and therefore outcomes. The responses
to experimentation and improvisation were interesting but contradictory in terms of
counteracting the pragmatic methods and attitudes of the skill set required.

Conclusion
Contemporary curatorial practice requires experimentation and
improvisation. There are intrinsic creative responses, which the curator
makes in collaboration with others to develop and formulate the
outcomes. These conditions enable the creativity and interest of the
curator to be fully enhanced and so producing the best curatorial
outcome. Experimental and improvisational methods also produce
significant outcomes for the artist, dynamic synergies with the artwork,
fully enhances the audience experience, draws most value from resources
and most importantly creates new curatorial methods to be tested and
adopted.

Value
What do you believe is the value of your curatorial practice in creative, cultural, economic,
social and/or political terms? What are the values to you personally?

The values of their practice could be categorized by being in public and in private. There was a
general agreement that the creativity of the projects, including the artists and audience, would
produce value for economical, social and political reasons. This was important in the
sustainability of the practice, its recognised value from others, the expectation of others, that the
curator (or as one mentioned, editor) had integrity and passion for the (local)
context/scene/production. The private value was considered an important space and time to be
innovative, to be creative and to explore the innovative possibilities, ideas and experiences in
curating. Therefore curatorial practice had value for the individual to explore their creative
40

interests and enquiries. The value also came through the investigation of the ways art can cross
into other spheres and have relevance by creative projects creating history, legacy, product and
new innovation.

Conclusion
The values of curating are two-fold, even opposing. They manifest in the
private experience byway of the creative, intellectual and free activities
of the curator. They also exist in the public experience where curatorial
practice is the trigger for production to enhance the broader
environment.


Sustainability of practice
How do you continue to do your practice?

With the sustainability of their practice the emphasis was on paid employment as this freed up
the thinking space, motivation to work with others and produce innovation. This employment
gave a level of comfort and buoyancy to practice independently and to create new work. A high
level of doing things in what ever way is available was also prominent, in scale, self-funding and
a do it yourself attitude. But having money (income, savings, grants) enabled sustainability of
day-to-day existence and of projects. Working with others, discussion, collective work,
awareness of others doing their practice sustained enthusiasm and motivation to practice.

Conclusion
Curatorial practice is a creative and intellectual activity, which is
maintained by the curators passion and need to curate. Similar to an
artists self produced economy, the independent curator will support
their practice through related and non-related paid employment. The
personal payback in practicing curating sustains the practice.


Effect
When and how do you know when your curatorial projects are effective and rewarding?

Considering the effect and success of their practice was again through an in private and in public
context. What was particularly important was making the artist happy, when it all goes
according to plan, but also an element of the unexpected that was unanticipated made it
successful. A process of self-refection and assessing in relation to self made aims and goals
41

enabled a private understanding of the practices success. In public it was the general audience
and peer feedback responses, further discussion, not being ignored for work produced and the
possibility of follow up projects and working together that evidenced this success.

Conclusion
In private, making the artist happy is key to the practice. In public the
practice requires feedback on the work produced as evidence of some
sort of success (or failure).

Conclusions of the survey
In this survey I also proposed some core criteria in which I asked for agreement or disagreement
from the respondents to the core requirements of an independent curator based on Bourdieus
hypothesis of the influence to a persons capital/habitus through their social, cultural and
professional context. This drew out the following findings -

An Independent curator requires

AGREE

A creative ability to interweave knowledge, experience and risk

A relentless work ethic (a way of life)

A instinct and ability to change outputs for precision and success

EQUAL AGREEMENT


A social and professional position in the field

A proven track record of successfully curated exhibitions / projects

DISAGREE


A historical and current knowledge and alliance with the field of power

A recognition in the field as one who curates

A position and location in the field where one curates

In reflection of these responses, the overall agreement is that the core dispositions of an

independent curator is someone who could be said to have high motivation and ability to be
creative with knowledge, be confident and instinctive with this ability but also have high skills in
judging quality as projects are developed and completed. The suggestion is also that they need a
certain position in the field, which is both social (private) and professional (public), which in
time therefore encourages a personal ecology of practice and profession. What is also significant
from these responses is the disagreement of acknowledgment of capital in association and
position within the formal or established structure of the curating field.
42

This enables us to determine that in reflection of their practice and profession an

independent curator is self-conscious of their position of power (capital) and will detract from
positioning them selves higher than the artist. They infer that their creative practice is the most
important aspect of what they do and combined with influential knowledge and experience of
the activities of the field they see that this is their position. The fact that they appear not to agree
that the positions of power and the position of the curator were important and correlates with
the respondents reluctance to be named as a curator. It also therefore appears that the
curators title but not practice was an issue of careerism and status, which the majority were
against.
Crucially, this survey enabled a repositioning of the core criteria in my definition of an
independent curator.

43

Conclusion

To conclude, what has become clear from this research is that even in attempting to
define the subject it is still difficult to bridge the perception and the reality of the practice from
those who do it.
Linking back to my initial research aims and questions which were to define an
independent curator byway of questioning the practice, methods and effects, social and creative
issues, current creative and critical methods and the tensions, contradictions and benefits in
independent curating, this research has enabled an informed and systematic deconstruction of
independent curatorial practice,
My own curatorial practice evolved in a sporadic but creative and beneficial way, but
now it seems things are different (more opportunities, acknowledgement through recent
discourse and academic curating courses), or are they?
My research methodologies have formulated a definition of an independent curatorial
practice primarily through Bourdieus thinking tools (capital, field, habitus and doxa), that we
derive our practice and profession on the nature of social experience and our connection with
others. Bourdieus theories on the social dispositions of an individual underpinned my research
and gave meaning to the understanding of our connections (doxa, habitus, field) influences (doxa,
capital), power (capital) and skills (habitus). Bourdieus thinking tools validated a theoretical
framework to apply to the current practices of the independent curator and hence determine
their understanding and if indeed they are relevant to this current practice.
By identifying that a curators field, habitus, doxa and capital can determine a curators
practice (private) and profession (public) there is something to be gained in how a curator can
then adapt their habitus to initiate and apply their skills, knowledge and social connections to
produce their individual practice.
My research methods and findings enabled me to identify and quantify a curators
habitus, as the important factor in their practice but what became more difficult to pinpoint is
how to identify the influential social dispositions that an independent curator working in the
field of contemporary art. The artists, peers and professions with which the curator connects can
imply these. As a curator, there is need to be between things, working in the space between.
These social traits therefore can be read as subjective and sometimes invisible, as they are a
construct. This is evidenced in the curating survey findings, which are positively weighed
towards the conditions of the practice, which are socially and creatively produced. This is
subjective in nature therefore is not confrontational and is without conflict, even without
authority, but the agreement is that it is required and important for the enhancement of the
practice.
The other undeniable Boudeiusean aspect of independent curatorial practice is the
influence of capital. Public exhibitions and projects require money and power as well as social
44

and creative capital but it could be argued that the success of curating and its outputs arrive
from a combination of the creative and the economical, and blending of the private and the
public - the practice and the profession.
These two apparent aspects of independent curating may appear to be opposite in their
purpose therefore the notion of an intermediary or as I have put it more metaphorically,
midwife, adds another important observation to the practice of an independent curator. This
dimension seemed to go unsaid from the responses in my curating survey. The curator is
evidently the intermediary between the artist and the public and this is evidenced by the
curating survey responses, which mention assisting and supporting the artist (appendix 1 p. 71),
as well as enabling the public to experience the exhibition or artwork (appendix 1 p. 68).
Therefore this aspect of intermediary between practice and public is inherent for all curators.
When asked, todays independent curator challenges the perception of a curator (and
curating) by questioning its current procedures and role. The practice has always been seen as
one that takes care of things (objects), but this now also, it appears, to apply to the social aspects
of the practice by taking care of the (happy) artist (appendix 1 p. 75/76), the creative aspects in
taking care of production and discourse (appendix 1 p. 60) and in the professional aspects of
taking care of the business of curating which leads to peer and public acknowledgment
(appendix 1 p. 62/63/75/76).
In questioning the tensions, contradictions and benefits, my research found that
independent curating requires elements of risk, experimentation and even serendipity
particularly within the practice (private) as a means to stand out from the traditional curators
role. This area of tension, which could be seen as abrasive or an area of resistance between the
independent curator and the profession can be seen to be a route to new practices and new
public experiences of curating and artwork.
In analysing the definition it is undeniably important to consider being independent in
this context. Being independent is not being independent of others. To be independent you need
to be connected, known, part of a larger field of curating activity. To be a curator doesnt mean
that that is what you are called, in fact it seems that its less problematic, with your peers if you
are not. Szeemann did not just call himself an exhibition maker as some sort of self conscious
positioning, even in the late 1960s he may already have perceived the future role of this new
profession. My curating survey shows that this is also the case; to be independent is also to be
free of the traditional curators legacy and the dominant ideologies (appendix 1 p. 69).
Independence is also a state of mind in practice whether working in or out with an
institution. Being independent of the institution enables the curator to develop experimental
and innovations of practice, such as the ones by Szeemann, Obrist and Higgs. But this
independence of ideas, thought and creativity ultimately becomes attractive and compelling to
the institution and the independent curator is invited into this environment, and with it comes
power through association and capital. This then changes the practice and it becomes a
45

profession. This again becomes clear through the analysis and mapping of the Szeemann, Obrist
and Higgs models. They showed an essential acknowledgment and understanding of the field of
play, but they also prioritised their freedom before entering into the profession and connections
with the institution, which enabled them to control their position in the contemporary art
system. They essentially played the game but within their practice enhanced their own habitus
by being innovative and developing their curatorial practice from within the institution.
The practice it seems, still wants to be free. But as my curating survey suggests there
appears to be a danger zone (which could also be identified as this area of abrasion/resistance),
which if crossed into has positive and negative effects on the practice and also the practitioner
and their relationship with others (artists, curators, public). These effects can be advantageous
(subjective) in terms of changing the rules and so initiating new ideas and creativity in a more
public and professional environment and those associated with it, or a disadvantage (objective)
as a compromise to the existing methods and traditions while even abandoning the importance
of ones credibility and integrity with dependable peers.
The independent curators who are not directly associated with an institution are
therefore able to act with a subjective freedom and enhancement of practice, which allows them
to experiment and escape (the) normalised methods of curating (appendix 1 p. 69). If they are
in association with an institution they become bound by the publicness of the situation, where
the projects will require being objective, compromised and negotiated in their development,
delivery and presentation.
In essence todays independent curators express that they are more disconcerting about
playing the game, as evidenced in the responses to my analysis. It seems by showing a mirror to
current practitioners they prefer to ignore these positions of power and in place have faith in
their creativity, risk and their ability to side step these systems. Therefore this may lead to a
certain doubt in applying certain aspects of Bourdieus thinking tools (capital, doxa and field but
enhancing the awareness and notion of habitus) in this context. But it could also be ultimately
argued that within their own peer systems there is a certain Boudeiusean influence present in
relation to doxa and capital and within which will ultimately determine their position, values
and success.

To finally conclude, my research now allows me to determine that the independent curator
works in and between fields of social, creative and professional activity practice and
profession. What appears to be unique is the identification of a curatorial practice, and that its
existence is crucial to the independent curator as their habitus or as a way of being. Curating is
no longer just a profession within the institution (although not isolated from it) but now readily
exists outwith these confines as a more fluid set of opportunities and contexts. The independent
curator therefore needs to position themselves within this network of opportunities and
connections to receive recognition, value and sustainability to their chosen and dedicated
46

practice. The public profession is the collaborations, the gaining of experience and the
recognition as a curator from the field. Therefore there are a number of identified requisites, to
exist as an independent curator, which are listed below as a working definition, that can be
evaluated by both the potential curator and the collaborator (artist, industry, institution, public)
to enable an understanding of the specific dispositions which are required and can be expected
to receive from the independent curator.

An independent curator requires -

In Practice (private):

To be creative with knowledge

To be independently spirited

To embrace risk and serendipity

To expect that curatorial practice is a way of life and being

To create a position and location in the field where one practices

To be acknowledged by peers as one who curates with sensibility

and passion

In Profession (public):

To be socially connected to the profession

To sense, produce and communicate connections

To be acknowledged as one who can curate with creativity and

integrity

To develop and sustain personal experience of practice and

profession in the field

To diplomatically challenge and reposition curatorial practice

with knowledge

To develop a productive (individual and intermediary) position in

relation to the profession and the its field of power and influence

47

Reference list


ADORNO, T and HOCKHEIMER, M., 1944/2002. Dialectics of Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford
Uni Press.
ADORNO, T., 1991. The Culture Industry, London: Routledge.
ANDREASEN, S and BANG LARSEN, L., 2007. The Middleman: Beginning to talk about mediation,
in ONEILL, P. (ed). Curating Subjects, London: Open Editions.
ART REVIEW., 2006. Issue 5, November, London: Art Review Ltd.
ART REVIEW., 2009. Issue 36, November, London: Art Review Ltd.
ART REVIEW., 2010. Issue 45, November, London: Arts Review Ltd.
BOURDIEU, P., 1984. Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge &
Keegan Paul.
BOURDIEU, P., 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press.
BOURDIEU, P., 2005. The Political Field, The Social Science Field, and the Journalistic Field, in
BENSON, R, and NEVEU, E. (eds). Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field, Cambridge: Polity.
CZEGLEDY, N., 2002. The Myth and Mischief Maker, in THOMAS, C, (ed). The Edge of Everything:
Reflections on Curatorial Practice. Banff, Alberta: The Banff Centre Press.
DEER, C., 2008. Doxa, in GENFELL, M. (ed). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts. London: Acumen Press.
DERIEUX, F., 2007. Harald Szeemann: Individual Methodology. Zurich: JRP|Ringier.
ENTWISTLE J and RACAMONA, A., 2006. The Field of Fashion Materialized, Sociology London;
Sage. Available from http://soc.sagepub.com/content/40/4/735.full.pdf+html [cited 29/01/13]
GAUNTLETT, D., 2011. Making is Connecting, The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and
knitting to You Tube and Web 2.0, Cambridge: Polity.
GRENFELL, M and HARDY, C., 2007. Art Rules: Pierre Bourdieu and the Visual Arts, Oxford: Berg.
GUPTA, A., (ed). 2008. Death of the Curator, Texas: Art Lies, A Contemporary Art Quarterly,
No.59.
HESMONDHALGH, D., 2006. Bourdieu, the media and cultural production, Media
Culture Society, London: Sage, 28 p. 211 231.
IRVING, I,, 2011. The Village Curator, in AGNEW, M. (ed.) Hurricane Lamb at Duff House,
Aberdeen: RGU IDEAS Research Institute.
IRVING, I., 2010. Evaluation Report: Essays on Independent Curators - Appendix 2. Unpublished
PGCert, Robert Gordon University.
KOWALSKI, MJ., 2010. The Curatorial Muse, London: Contemporary Aesthetics. Available from:
http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=585
[cited 02/11/10]

48

LEE, S., 2011. Joking apart, London: The Financial Times Ltd, FT.com. Available from -
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a8066bc2-6b9e-11e0 93f8 00144feab49a.html#axzz1KIVZEgxh
[cited 26/05/12]
LEVI-STRAUSS, D., 2006. The Bias of the World: Curating After Szeemann & Hopps, New York, The
Brooklyn Rail. Available from - http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/12/art/the-bias-of-the-
world [cited 06/05/12]
MARINCOLA, P., (ed). 2001. Curating Now: Imaginative Practice/Public Responsibility,
Philadelphia: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative.
MATON, K., 2008. Habitus, in GENFELL, M. (ed). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts. London: Acumen
Press.
MOORE, R., 2008. Capital, in GENFELL, M. (ed). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts. London: Acumen
Press.
MLLER, H.J, 2006. Harald Szeemann: Exhibition Maker, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz
NEGUS, K., 2002. The work of cultural intermediaries and the enduring distance between
production and consumption, in Cultural Studies, London: Routledge; 16: 4, p. 501 505.
OBRIST, H. U., 2008. A Brief History of Curating, Dijon, Les Presses du Reel.
ROBINSON, K., 2010. The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, London:
Penguin.
RUGOFF, R., 1999. Rules of the Game, London: Frieze, 44.
SCHUMPETER, J., 1952. Capitalism, socialism and democracy, London: Unwin University.
THOMAS, C. (ed)., 2002. The Edge of Everything: Reflections on Curatorial Practice. Banff, Alberta:
The Banff Centre Press.
THOMSON, P., 2008. Field, in GENFELL, M. (ed). Pierre Bourdieu: Key concepts. London: Acumen
Press.

49

Bibliography

ALTHUSER, B., 1994. The Avant-Garde in Exhibition: New art in the 20th Century, New York:
Harry N Abrams.
BILLING J, LIND M AND NILSSON L (eds)., 2007. Taking the matter into common hands, London:
Black Dog Publishing.
BOURDIEU, P and DARBEL, A., 1991. The Love of Art, Cambridge, Polity Press.
BOURDIEU, P., 1996. The Rules of Art, Cambridge, Polity Press.
CURTIS, P., 1996. Private View, exhibition catalogue, Leeds: Henry Moore Institute.
DE CERTAU M, trans RENDALL S.F., 1984. The Practice of everyday life, Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
DORNER, A., 1947. The Way Beyond Art: the Work of Herbert Bayer, New York, Wittenborn,
Schultz Inc.
FARGERBERG, J., 2009. A Guide to Schumpeter, University of Oslo, Available from:
http://www.cas.uio.no/Publications/Seminar/Confluence_Fagerberg.pdf [cited 29/01/13]
GARNHAM, N., 2005. From Cultural to Creative Industries: An analysis of the implications of the
creative industries approach to arts and media policy making in the United Kingdom,
International Journal of Cultural Policy, Vol.11, No.1, London: Routledge.
GREENBERG, R, FERGUSON, B and NAIRNE, S, (eds)., 1996. Thinking About Exhibitions London
and New York: Routledge.
HESMONDHALGH, D., 2002. The Cultural Industries, London: Sage.
HOFFMANS, J., 2007. A Certain Tendency of Curating, in ONEIL, P, (ed). Curating Subjects,
London: Occasional Table/Open Editions.
HUGHES, L., 2005. Do we need new spaces for exhibiting contemporary art? A critique of curatorial
practice in relation to the viewer's engagement with contemporary art, London: Journal of Visual
Art Practice 4:1.
HYDE L., 2006. The Gift, Edinburgh: Cannongate Ltd.
HYDE L., 2008, Trickster makes this world, Edinburgh: Cannongate Ltd.
IRVING, I. 2009-2013. Iain Irving Research and Projects, self-published research website.
Available from http://iainirvingresearchandprojects.wordpress.com
JENKINS, S., 2010. As they bow to London's arts mafiosi, the Tories still handcuff the provinces,
London: The Guardian. Available from:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/21/london-arts-mafiosi-spending-cuts
[cited 02/11/10]
KARABA E AND YIAKOUMAKI N (eds)., 2004/7. Feedback #4: Ideas that inform, construct and
concern the production of exhibitions and events, UK: Feedback.
KRZYS ACORD, S., 2010. Beyond the Head: The Practical Work of Curating Contemporary Art,
Available from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11133-010-9164-y
50

[cited 10/08/2012].
LAKOFF, G. & JOHNSON, M., 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
LEWIS, J., 1990. Art, Culture and Enterprise, Politics of art and the cultural industries, London:
Routledge.
LIPPARD, L, (ed)., 1973. Six Years: The Dematerialisation of the Art world from 1966 to 1972,
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
MARTINON, J P. 2012. Theses in the Philosophy of Curating. London: I.B.Tauris: Available from:
http://www.jeanpaulmartinon.net/Site/Books.html [cited 12/05/12]
McGUIGAN, J., 1996. Culture and the Public Sphere, London: Routledge.
McMASTER, Sir B., 2008. Supporting Excellence in the Arts: From Measurement to Judgement,
London: DCMS.
MONTMANN, N, (ed). 2006. Art and Its Institutions, Current conflicts, critique and collaborations,
London: Black Dog Publishing.
MOSER, G., 2008. Do curators need university curatorial programs?, Visual Arts Foundation,
International Contemporary Art, Available from -
http://www.mjfdesign.net/terri/4bdocuratorsneed.pdf [cited 20/02/10]
NAIRNE, A, (ed)., 1999. Prime, exhibition catalogue, Dundee: Dundee Contemporary Art.
NICKAS, R.. 2008. Theft is Vision, Dijon: Les Presses du Reel.
O'DOHERTY, B., 1999. Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, Berkeley, Los
Angeles and London: University of California Press.
ONEILL, P. (ed)., 2007. Curating Subjects, London: Open Editions.
ONEILL, P., 2006. Curating: Practice becoming common discourse, Leeds Metropolitan University,
slashseconds.org. Available from -
http://www.slashseconds.org/issues/001/003/articles/poneil/index.php [cited 29/01/12]
OBRIST, H. U., 2003. Interviews volume 1, Milan: Charta.
ROGOFF, I., 2006. Smuggling - An Embodied Criticality. Available from -
http://transform.eipcp.net [cited 12/05/12]
SANDALS, L., 2009. Trade Secrets: Swapping Curatorial Confidences. Toronto, Canadian Art.
Available from: http://www.canadianart.ca/features/2008/11/20/banff/ [cited 15/05/11].
SARDAR Z and VAN LOON B.,1999. Introducing Cultural Studies, New York: Totem Books
SCHN, D. A., 1993. In: ORTONY, A, (ed). Metaphor and thought. revised ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
SENNETT, R., 2008. The Craftsman. London: Allen Lane.
WITTS, R., 1998. Artist unknown, an Alternative History of the Arts Council, Warner Books,
London.
ZEISKE, C and SACRAMENTO, N., 2010. Artocracy: Art, Informal Space, and Social Consequence: a
curatorial handbook in collaborative practice, Berlin: Jovis Verlag.

51

List of Illustrations

3.1
REPRODUO.,2010 Harald Szeemann In: CURATING CHANNEL 2010. Meet the curator selected
Renan Ahmad. Brazil: Novos Curadoes. Available from:
http://www.novoscuradores.com.br/artigo-blog/conheca-o-curador-selecionado-renan-araujo
[Accessed 12 February 2013].

3.2
BALTHASAR, B., 2005. The Szeemann Archive. In: DERIEUX F., 2007. Harald Szeemann: Individual
Methodology. Zurich: JRP|Ringier. p.32/39

3.3
BALTHASAR, B., 1969. The sidewalk in front of the Kunsthalle, Bern is demolished in an action by
Michael Heizer during the exhibition When Attitudes became Form 1969. In: MLLER H-J., 2006.
Harald Szeemann: Exhibition Maker, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. p. 12-13.

3.4
UNKNOWN, 2010. Matthew Higgs and Martin Creed. In: COLLECTIONOF 2010. New York:
Collectionof. Available from: http://www.collectionof.net/detail/248/issue-13 [Accessed 12
February 2013].


3.5
UNKNOWN, 2013, Hans Ulrich Obrist. In: ELECTRONIC BEATS 2013. Offenbach: Deutche
Telekom. Available from: http://www.electronicbeats.net/en/author/hans-ulrich-obrist/
[Accessed 12 February 2013].

4.1
Theoretical framework diagram
Image credit: Author, 2013.

4.2
Interior of Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire with Janice McNab artwork
Photo credit: Stuart Johnstone, 2004
Exterior of Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire.
Photo credit: Stuart Johnstone, 2004

4.3
UNKNOWN, 2013. Transmission Gallery. In: THE SKINNY 2013. Edinburgh: The Skinny.
Available from: http://www.theskinny.co.uk/venue/7344-transmission_gallery [Accessed 12
February 2013].

52

4.4
WILLIAMS, B., 2010, DROMOS, Generator Projects, Dundee, 2010. In: SOUTH LONDON ART MAP
2011. London: South London Art Map. Available from:
http://www.southlondonartmap.com/magazine/issue-1/preview [Accessed 12 February 2013].

6.1
Framework Forum, 24/09/11, CCA, Glasgow
Photo credit: Framework, 2011.
Available from: http://framework.parallellines.org.uk

53

Appendices

Appendix 1.

A Survey of Independent Curatorial Practice in Scotland

Questions and answers

Appendix 2.
Oak Trees and Fountains curated project, Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire
Reflective essay and archive images

Appendix 3.

Where is curating if it is not in the Institution?

DART Seminar, Grays School of Art, Aberdeen
Research paper and DVD















54

Appendix 1

A Survey of Independent Curatorial Practice in Scotland

Context and Criteria


The survey questions were composed to determine the following issues of the
respondents curatorial practice - background, motivation, influences, skills and experience,
improvisation and experimentation, value, sustainability of practice and effect. These issues
would give details of the respondents personal and professional context, their perceptions of
the motivations, influences and ambitions of their curatorial practice and their concepts of the
value and effect that their practice produces. They were also asked to respond in agreement or
disagreement to statements about the Curator, which were informed by Bourdieus theories.

The core focus group was based on individual participants of the Framework curatorial
group during August and September 2011. These respondents were considered as the core
group as they had all marked themselves out as independent curators by attendance and
participation at Framework. The core group consisted of 12 people from the group.
The survey was distributed to this core group on 4th October 2011. 91% (10 of 11)
responded positively to complete the survey and 45% (5) had fully completed the survey by
21st November 2011.
There was also a second distribution of the survey to individuals who were not part of
the Framework group but who were working in a curatorial position either purely
independently or in an organisation in Scotland, which was of an independent status (i.e. those
whose main funding did not come directly from Government such as museums and major
galleries but whos programme is developed through various funding sources and is therefore
needs to be organic). These potential respondents were all based in various parts of Scotland
including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Shetland, Orkney, Stornoway and Huntly. This group
consisted of 34 people. The survey was distributed to this group on 11th October 2011. 68% (23
of 34) responded positively to complete the survey and 29% (10) had fully completed the survey
by 21st November 2011. Overall there were 33% (16 of 45) of full replies.

The Framework curatorial group participants were an effective core focus group for this
research as it had come together through the identification of a current need to recognise the
diverse, innovative and ambitious practice across Scotland, alongside the lack of a sustained
platform in which to jointly discuss curatorial practice and define this work within a wider
international context. What was clear with the core group was their self-identification as
55

curators and hence were ambitious to make their position clearer within the contemporary art
context, working in Scotland but also having an International standing.
They were less established as curators, mostly being a few years out of higher education
but each one was looking for new opportunities and a new identity for their curatorial practice.
The wider group of respondents were mostly established as curators or exhibition makers. They
had progressed into paid employment after many years of unpaid and voluntary practice
primarily because they were excited and motivated to do it. Their motivations were stimulated
from working directly with contemporary art practice, through artists, galleries, and artist led
initiatives.

Questions and Answers

1. Background
Can you briefly tell me about your background, where, when and what
subjects have you formally studied and how did you start your curating?

Participant 1 - I studied Time Based Art (BA hons) and Electronic Imaging (MSc). I began
organising events and screenings during my time at Uni, which then developed into curating my
Masters group show. I went on to form the curatorial collective.

Participant 2 - I studied a Diploma of Visual Arts then completed a Bachelor of Contemporary
Art (both practical and theoretical) and then completed a Masters of Cultural Heritage
specializing in Museum Studies. The Masters had a strong international focus. I began curating
when I was in college, organizing our graduate exhibition and then continued to organize
exhibitions for friends and friends of friends.

Participant 3 - I studied Fine Art and fell into curating by working on artist-initiated projects.

Participant 4 - Foundation in Art & Design BA (Hons) in Fine Art, MA in Curating
Contemporary Art. I was keen to go to art school but quite soon into my degree I realized I
wasnt as interested in making art as I was in the ideas that surround the production and
presentation of it. I found myself collaborating with other people and helping to realize their
projects rather than my own, running the college gallery and organizing various events including
our degree show.

Participant 5 - I completed an undergraduate in International Relations and masters in
tourism and cultural engineering. I recently completed masters in creative practices. My first
56

formal experience in curating involved supporting the curatorial research and selection of works
for a major exhibition. I was also involved in developing a workshop about curatorial practice.

Participant 6 - M.A. Hons French Language & Literature followed by post-graduate diploma in
Museum & Gallery Studies. Not sure I really was aware of starting joined artist run gallery
committee, got part-time job as Exhibition Assistant. First job as curator was at major art
gallery.

Participant 7 - I studied Fine Art Drawing & Painting. I chose the course because it had the
most expanded cross-disciplinary approach. After graduating I was involved in artist-led group.
This was my first solid experience of curating and exhibition making. My body of work became
increasingly focused on how the public would encounter the work and thinking about context. In
retrospect (only) this body of work was a clear step towards and indicator of the relevance of
my developing curatorial practice.

Participant 8 - I studied Religious Studies and English. I landed a job working in the art
department of a feature film. I then worked as an assistant film producer and film and art
festival organizer.

Participant 9 - I studied a degree and MFA in Fine Art and had been organising and curating
exhibitions after my degree with fellow studio artists. I have always had an interest in curating
and completed an MA in Curating. After completing an internship I am now studying a PhD.

Participant 10 - I opened a small project space in the house I was living in at the time working
with friends on projects be they exhibitions, talks, workshops or screenings. I joined the
committee of artist run space. This is I think when I really started to curate and engage
properly with what it means to work within the dissemination of culture and it was at this point
that I stopped producing my own work.

Participant 11 - I studied Economics and Social Anthropology. I guess I started curating when I
managed a venues artistic programme and got interested in contemporary art.

Participant 12 - I studied History of Art MA (Hons). I became aware of curatorial practices, in a
general way, and looked into the methods and discourses of exhibition making on my own i.e.
out-with the curricula. I started curating by simply getting in touch with some of my favourite
artists from around the world, with whom I could share concerns, as well as realise an
opportunity to study their work closely.

57

Participant 13 - I undertook a Communication and Cultural Studies Degree. Course provided

relatable skills for my chosen profession but is neither a Fine Art nor Curatorial course. Subjects
included Photography, Video Production, Multimedia, Postmodernism, Semiotics, Sociology and
Representation. I undertook internships and also worked as a freelance technician. Curatorially,
I have benefitted enormously from the practical experiences I have obtained. I view a very good
working knowledge of other art forms such as literature, film, dance and music as being of equal
importance when working with contemporary artists. I am lucky to have amassed a good library
and retain a good memory for the culture I have consumed.

Participant 14 - I studied Drawing and Painting followed by an MFA in Fine Art and Public Art. I
worked as an artist and also worked p/t in arts organizations, including volunteer to gallery co-
ordinator. As an artist I did several residencies. It was during my time on residence that I saw
the real potential of what curating could be. My art practice latterly had become about creating
structures to connect people, ideas and place. I realised that curating could deal with and
interrogate this in a much more fundamental way. Curating then became what I wanted to do
and I secured my first f/t curator role. I see curating as an expanded form of a creative practice. I
would not class myself as an artist or artist/curator as my practice now is curating.

Participant 15 - I studied Fine Art. After graduating I practiced as an artist and worked as an
exhibitions researcher. I worked full time in the exhibitions department. I was predominantly
involved in curating and programming design exhibitions, events and projects, both locally and
internationally. I was a committee member of an artist run space..

Participant 16 - I studied Art History. I worked in a programming team. In this role I was
involved in curating and managing a touring programme of exhibitions, events and projects. I
was Acting Exhibitions Manager involved in curating and programming design exhibitions,
events.

2. Motivation
What motivates you to curate and what are the benefits to you
personally in curating?

P1

- I enjoy organising events and distributing art amongst my peers and the public. I like

to see artists realise their projects and also present art in interesting locations and formats often
outwith the gallery context in turn hopefully breaking down the barriers between the art sector
and wider society. The benefits of curating for me is that you get to make things happen.
58


P2

- My passion for contemporary art motivates me. I am fascinated by the endless

possibilities of what contemporary art can be, how its produced, who produces it and how it is
interpreted. I find it really challenging but also extremely rewarding curating, as it really
explores the process of discovering or re-discovering contemporary art and how displaying or
(re) presenting it in particular ways influences how it is interpreted. I love how curating
intersects with psychology and that it is essentially about sharing what you are passionate about
with other people. I get a great deal of satisfaction from researching and pulling together
different ideas of concepts to make a whole. I also enjoy the organizational element
communicating with different artists, finding out about what they do and how they do it,
sometimes guiding them towards helpful sources of research for their practice (particularly
when its an on-going relationship). I enjoy the practical side of organizing the logistics of
putting on exhibitions or events completing a project and presenting it to the public. I like
exploring how the finished product can be presented to the audience in mind and bridging the
gap between what the artist has created, what they want to say and the possibilities for audience
interpretation. I like climbing into the mind of both the artist and the audience (if such a thing is
possible).

P3

- My motivation stems from wanting to see or be involved in things, which were not

happening at that time. As I progressed I felt that I could do more if I was not working on my
own as an artist and this excited me. I know feel that I can work more effectively in my current
role and feel able to be more pro-active than I did as an artist.

P4

- Working directly with artists, collaborating with other curators, organizations and

institutions and thinking about other ideas through art.

P5

- I see curating as an exercise where I initiate a process circulating around an unresolved

question I have usually regarding a social issue, where through artists and artworks, I am able to
reach into suprarational attachments such as values and political ideals that are absent or
difficult to discuss in an academic or social context. The personal benefit is that through the
process, my assumptions are revealed or broken down and new perspectives enter, allowing me
to become intelligible to myself.

P6

- Interest in art, ideas and artists. Enjoy seeing artworks come together with spaces and

people. Benefits always-new ways of thinking and new attitudes and ideas. Access to difference
and diversity. Travel. Talking. Thinking. And how I make a living

59

P7

- Commitment to developing artists practices through well-tailored and supported

opportunities. Interest in criticality in art practice for artists and curators as well as for the
public, this focus is rewarding intellectually.

P8

- I enjoy managing a larger project from inception to delivery. The personal benefits to

date means I have been exposed to a diverse range of people, artwork and places that have in
turn allowed me to develop and carve out a career for myself.

P9

- I have an interest in developing cross-disciplinary projects and working with

communities as well as artists in a collaborative / participatory process. Personally, curating

enables me to develop and improve my knowledge of curatorial, artistic and otter forms of
knowledge and expertise such as social science, geography and philosophy.

P10

- My motivations are very diverse. I think if I where to try and locate the core of my

interest it would be in the production of discourse and the sharing and creation of knowledge in
hopefully the most equitable manner possible. Im not so interested in a careerist view of
curating and as such it is difficult to conceptualise a benefit. If there is one it is in my continued
development and education.

P11

- I like working with artists. I guess I like working with people of all sorts. But artists are

in particular rewarding (although sometimes difficult) to engage with.

P12

- Working with artists allows me direct experience with artwork, which is very

important to me, not because it is necessarily better, but certainly different. A dialogue can take
place, and I have found talking with people and engaging with works to be infinitely valuable. I
am motivated to explore curating critically expanding upon traditional modes, and accepting
the role as both inherently problematic as well as a particular set of skills. What motivates me to
curate is the possibility to engage with art and artists (and their own modes of production)
within this critical field. What motivates me to do this is my own acknowledgement of the
importance of a critically discursive field, which can problematize, question, promote and
illustrate contemporary concerns art and curating are, to me, such fields.

P13

- My life surrounds a fascination with art so the benefit and motivation are recursively

embedded into my life. If I am not working, I am looking at art and if Im working Im trying to
look at art. I believe I am closely (but still with a critical stand point) connected to the art that
has been happening across Scotland in the last two decades. I remain curious to figure out
emergent practice and equally to find out more about art from further afield. Art provides me
60

with a constant desire to travel to seek out art. As my job has a budget to spend on travel, this is
an enormous benefit for me.

P14

- What motivates me are the questions that continue to arise from each project and

overall a continuing desire to create different, unique structures that connect people, ideas and
place. Context, and the unique shifting co-ordinates of working in a creative environment always
lead this. Local co-ordinates can include organisational aims; teaching and learning objectives;
our internal and external audiences; the site-specific nature of galleries. National/international
co-ordinates include contemporary practice and practitioners across art, design and
architecture; and specific social, educational, cultural and economic issues. As I see curating as
an expanded creative practice, the personal benefits are fulfilment from this form of creativity.
Creative practice has always been an important part of my identity and this happens to be the
route it mostly manifests itself.

P15/16

- We want to be involved in creating and producing interesting research and

objects in the world, being part of an intellectual dialogue to do with visual culture -and its
dissemination to public audiences. We want to excite our imaginations by working with like-
minded practitioners in order to contribute to this dialogue.

3. Influences
Can you tell me what exhibitions/projects influenced you when you began
curating and what continues to influence your practice?

P1

- Initially I looked towards the Situationists and also the Happenings of the 1960s in

particular Allan Kaprow's work. I also saw Hans Ulrich Obrist and Olafur Eliasson's 'The
Experiment Marathon Reykjavik' at the Icelandic National Museum. I particularly engaged with
how these movements and this exhibition encouraged audience participation in an artwork and
incorporated other fields of expertise. Audience participation is still at the heart of my curation
however now I am more interested in how a work can be viewed in multiple formats and
platforms and how this is contorted through display often employing open source
methodologies within familiar formats from other industries.

P2

- I was always inspired by the exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Contemporary

artand Juliana Engberg continues to be a source of inspiration today. I always loved how the
architecture of ACCA would change and hold every exhibition in a completely different way. I
have always considered Engberg to be simultaneously very international and very Australian
in the way she seemed to place just as much emphasis on the international artists exhibited as
61

the Australians, and also how emerging (and sometimes controversial) artists were given such
room to explore and experiment within the space. However, I feel I am returning to people I find
inspirational because they push the boundaries or curate exhibitions or organize projects as (it
seems) a kind of natural response to something. I find Ellen Blumenstein particularly interesting
in the way in which the organization or hosting of events (Salon Populaire) celebrates the
intersection of contemporary art with other disciplines and within a social environment.

P3

- When I began my peers influenced me mostly and a sense that it was possible to take

matters into your own hands. Now I am still influenced by artists mostly.

P4

- Going to art school and trying to make art was probably more influential than any

exhibitions or projects that I saw. Im interested in the transparency of the production, and
reception, of work and this seems to have followed me through various positions and projects.

P5

- After graduating from college, I came across an exhibition curated by Dan Cameron,

Living Inside the Grid at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City about the way
that our lives operate within the grid (New Museum of Contemporary Art 2003). The grid
featured largely in courses I had taken in college that examined modernity and its sociological
and historical accounts. The exhibition resonated from the bringing together of different
artworks that were, to me, expressions of multiple perspectives of how the grid influenced
peoples lives, in a manner that I derived personal meaning from. My chance visit to Living Inside
the Grid helped me realise the potential of curating to explore social issues through artworks
that would, in turn, be interpreted by other people in personal ways. While I might not see the
exhibition now as a model for my own projects, it was significant because I went out feeling that
all I wanted to do in future was to make exhibitions, and it directed what I would eventually
pursue. Specific projects that influenced me to see that independent art projects possess greater
credibility in responding to social concerns, because of fewer constraints (of reputation or
bureaucracy) that allow them to react critically and more swiftly: A Vision for Tomorrow (2006,
Singapore). Curated by p-10 and scab, it was a small exhibition that I saw as a symbolic
alternative to the way that culture was led by economic interests in Singapore. It was presented
to coincide with the first Singapore Biennale. Projects by Cemeti Art House (Jogjakarta,
Indonesia). Though existing for over 20 years, it still seeks to think about how their projects
respond to the community. For example, their new platform, Art & Society, focuses on process-
led initiatives that question the relationship between art and society.

P6

- I saw a show called The Status of Sculpture at the ICA in 1991 (with Robert Gober,

Cady Noland, etc.) which really struck me had never seen anything like it before and I loved it.
So much that I asked to write a seminar paper about it, which I did. Next was undoubtedly
62

Lawrence Weiner at Transmission. What continues to influence me is just art that I see really,
and discussions with friends and peers about what they have seen.

P7

- Documenta., Alistair McLennans practice. European museum shows about 60s 80s

feminist and minority group artists (Often with visceral, experiential offer to the audience,
physical commitment from the artists, or approaches, which looked at iconography of modern
life differently/, took control of this medium). Continue to be influenced by artists practices at
forefront. I am becoming increasingly influenced by writing as part of my practice and from
others, which has meant a return to past interests in beat poetry, Scottish oral tradition, South
American and Spanish poets.

P8

- I cant think of one exhibition or project that particularly influenced me at the start of

my career. Although I did feel I could deliver and produce something a lot more interesting that
a lot of bad or poorly produced exhibitions I visited! To deliver good quality high art that
challenges and speaks to a wide public. To show difficult work, to bring artists and public
together to explore ideas. I guess are some of the reasons that I am still motivated to continue
putting together exhibitions and working with artists.

P9

- Would be difficult to say that there were any exhibitions/ projects that influenced me

when I began curating, as initially curating was something that happened as part of my art
practice after finishing my degree. An early influence though would probably be the exhibitions I
saw in Sheffield and the artist-run exhibitions and events that were presented there. Exhibitions
at the Site Gallery Sheffield, in particular 'Immediate, New Art from the North', which presented
young artists from the North of England, and Art Sheffield 03, in particular the exhibition by
Georgina Starr, Bunny Lake Drive-in. Artists and curators who work in particular places and
localities with an interest in community and collective action currently influence my practice.
Deveron Arts, Sophie Hope (Greenwich Peninsula), Jeanne Van Heewijk (The Blue House), Freee
Art Collective, Helix Arts, Crumb (Newcastle University), Circa Arts, Stephen Willats....

P10 - There are many influences running through my practice in quite direct ways. I shall list
them here in no particular order: Jan Verwoert, Charles Esche and everyone at the Van Abbe
Museum, Franco Bifo Berardi, Geert Lovink, Gavin Wade/ Eastside Projects, Internet Culture,
Hito Steyerl, Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Dave Beech (Freee)

P11

- I met Iain Irving quite early in my curating career. He drew attention to an exhibition

called Private View curated by Penelope Curtis. That interested me at the time, juxtaposing
heritage with contemporary art. I then got interested in community, more like an anthropologist,
but working with artists and art almost as a tool.
63


P12

- I remember being a teenager still and watching a pretty bad channel 5 programme

about the Tate Modern re-hang. It was that which illustrated the opportunity of presenting
narratives beyond canonical presentations and chronology. I then studied exhibitions of varying
complexity in their narratives and concepts though what I would call quite traditional in their
execution, they did allow me to understand, or try to understand, some quite complex
theoretical concerns. Working with Deveron Arts seemed to open my eyes not just to their
particular methodology, but to others as well. Where I had often been influenced by rather dense
and explicitly theoretically minded exhibitions, I now prefer to critically reflect on these
mediations as symptomatic of a dominant narrative. The Feral Trade Caf project at Collective in
Edinburgh was influential in terms of how a spaces identity can be determined by practices,
which are often not art at all but exploit or disrupt its mechanisms.

P13

- I had spent ten years going to London for big shows at the Hayward, Royal Academy,

Serpentine, Tate and the Whitechapel and shows in Scotland at the Fruitmarket, Third Eye
Centre/CCA, Stills and the National Galleries. But it was shows at Transmission, The Collective
and Inverleith House by the likes of Richard Wright, Martin Boyce, Alex Frost, Cathy Wilkes and
Callum Innes that were especially important to fostering a sense that I could become involved in
this career. I continue to look at artist run and emerging practices to keep abreast of art that
could be considered under the radar..

P14

- Grizedale Arts approach was a huge influence on my choice to become a curator.

Experiencing a programme without a gallery helped me see what the spectrum of a curatorial
practice could be, with the emphasis not solely on the output but on the process; and the output
often unknown when the project was embarked upon. It also taught me that through setting
specific questions in a programme, work could find unexpected answers. It gave me a good
grounding in working with other artists and how the curator develops a bespoke way of working
with each person. This was the first time I had worked with artists at different stages of their
career, which stood me in good stead for creating a democratic curatorial practice of working
with students through to established practitioners. It also put an emphasis on working with a
wide range of sources. What continues to influence me is others creative practice; ways of
thinking; new connections; making projects relevant.

P15/16

- From early-on, we had access to large museum exhibitions curated in the

established tradition of working with collections and bringing works and ideas together in new
configurations. We both also regularly visited the Museum of Scotland. I visited Sensation at the
Royal Academy in LondonPost graduating, we recall the following exhibitions and
projects: Re-design, exhibition curated by Nipon Design Centre. Various artist led exhibitions
64

and projects taking place at Transmission Gallery (ie. Atelier van Lieshout). Designers block
2003, 100% Design (design trade fair/exhibition in London) Design Mai, Berlin 2004 (design
fair) We are interested in the crossover between museum style presentation and something
more experiential in terms of exhibition production.

4. Skills and Experience

Do you think that you have relevant skills and experience to curate, what do
you believe these to be?

P1

- I have the skills as I am passionate about contemporary art and am driven to create

projects, which engage audiences in its production.

P2

- I think I have the relevant skills and experience to curate in a very practical sense (e.g.

exhibition or events) organization, an ability to research, excellent communication skills, an

understanding of art history and theory, an engagement with the visual art sectorhowever I
sometimes doubt whether I have the right intellectual skills am I researching enough? Am I
researching or developing ideas and concepts within the right framework? Am I using the right
methodology?

P3

- If I have I have learnt them on the job. I know I can make things happen and I think this

is the most important thing whatever field you are in. I also know I lack formal education and try
to bring in specialists when I need to.

P4

- Yes. I understand the process of producing work, and am also aware of (and interested

in) the more academic ideas and political issues that surround the presentation of it.

P5

- Ability to sustain conversations with artists and understand their intentions for their

works. Sensitivity to artistic practices in the area. Patience, commitment to follow-up and work
out logistics, and guts. Ability to recognise and articulate what I want to do, and what I am
uncertain about. I am still trying to acquire these.

P6

- Having made lots of exhibitions helps! Being able to talk about art to a public is also

important if not actually vital. Managing teams directing crews etc. Ability to mediate project
to institution and public. Interested in art and artists!

P7

- Yes, but I see it as a continuing learning progression. For me to curate I feel I need to be

up to date with real world and art world issues and practices, so in order to be able to continue
65

to curate it would be necessary to keep the other integral research areas of the practice current.
I have a broad portfolio of other skills, which help in the project management and human
interaction of exhibition making.

P8

- I find the term curator is overused and often misused today. The notion of curator

seems to try to outshine the importance of the artist. To my mind to be a good curator you
simply need to have a good eye and understanding of the field of interest to yourself and/or
gallery plus the ability to manage and organise a large-scale project and team.

P9
1) Research skills
2) Knowledge of historical and current strategies and methodologies of curating
3) Interest in current artistic and curatorial practice
4) Willingness to chase lost causes, to pursue and artist if you think their work fits into your
project
5) Negotiation skills

P10

- I think it would be difficult to ascribe a certain set of skills or experiences as being those

of the curator as this runs the risk of naturalising a specific extant mode of working. We need to
be working to break the preconceptions of what curatorial practice is or could be.

P11

- I dont have formal curating skills but my background in Social Anthropology helps me

to analyse community; to assess situations among people. I have many years dealing with artists;
and I have a keen interest to bring locality together with globality. I am interested in sense of
place, but also in international working at the same time. I also have experience in art
fundraising, which comes handy at times.

P12

- I believe that I am certainly learning as I go on, particularly as I am very young. I often

try to engineer a framework wherein I can work with artists in producing a satisfying outcome
that is the result of a dialogue, rather than a simple 1+1 formula. In being so involved with
critical dialogue, I find it is necessary to always have a certain presence of mind that can both
respond to others as well as pick up on relevant pieces of information. I have also always given
myself rather large goals, and pursued them with the intention that anything is possible.
Acknowledging this field of possibility is key to emergent practice, if it is to oppose or be
critically aware of dominant modes of operation. As well as creating a space that nurtures
creative dialogue, it is also important to garner trust through being simply very reliable and
practical being resourceful, and following through with your commitments.

66

P13

- I have the skills and the experience based on a track record. In terms of a skill-set of

managing staff, art handling, artist liaison, production, negotiation, collaboration and leadership,
I am confident that I am well placed. Instinct and commitment are also massive parts of the job.
Seeing art and having the instinct to present it for your audience is an essential component. The
job requires high levels of commitment to instil confidence in the artists you work with. I am not
sure you learn these

P14 - Curators come at curating through many different routes and experiences, which is what
makes it interesting and varied.
These are some of the skills required:
An overview
Insight
Good ideas
Ability to make connections
Project management
Financial and administrational skills
Writing skills
Communication skills
Funding skills
Interest in contemporary practice

P15/16

- We have never trained as curators. In what we do we need to be thoughtful,

imaginative and organized.

5. Improvisations and Experimentation

Does you practice involve methods of improvisation and experimentation, if
so how and why do you implement such methods?

P1

- Yes I am often borrowing techniques employed from other disciplines or sectors also

sometimes these work sometimes they don't

P2

- All of my practice involves methods of improvisation and experimentation!! As I never

undertook a contemporary art-curating course I am, in a sense, experimenting with my whole

career. I have never really studied different methods within curatorial practice and its never
really become an issue. I have reached a stage where I have curated projects out of personal
interest or demand; the focus has been on research through actually staging the exhibition or
event. Experimental activities such as hosting discussion groups with different topics, inviting a
67

mixture of artists and professionals from other disciplines have often provided a framework for
further research or developing exhibition ideas, but this is not something I do as standard for
each exhibition or project it depends on how that project or exhibition starts and continues to
develop. In other words, so far I have always developed things rather organically.

P3

- I never begin thinking that I want to improvise, but it often happens because I am

drawn to experimental working. Trying to never do the same thing twice or approach things in
the same way twice. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

P4

- Yes, in that I regularly collaborate with other people (both artists and curators) and

groups to push myself out of a comfort zone and to discuss a wider spectrum of ideas.

P5

- Yes. Improvisation and experimentation occurs in different ways, for example having

call-outs to bring people together to collaboratively develop a project; developing curatorial

projects that eventually feed into a work-in-progress artwork; testing out how writing relates
my curatorial practice. My curatorial process is one in which I begin from a point of uncertainty
and become intelligible through the bringing together or intervention of different artworks. If I
knew the outcome (i.e. did not have to improvise and experiment), the project would no longer
be meaningful for me. Improvisation also has to take place because more often than not, my
plans fail and I have to adapt.

P6

- Constant improvisation and experimentation. For example in placing of work in

exhibition. Why? to achieve most appropriate and engaging effect for artist(s).

P7

- Yes, some projects more than others. In exhibitions of existing works you dont know

how things will work until they are together in the space and both improvisation and
experimentation may be employed in the presentation of the space and the works and in the
interpretation. This would be towards highlighting synergies between the works, designing the
experience of the visitor to maximum effect, being sensitive to the works and bringing about
understanding of them as the artist intended or highlighting something surprising about them.
In new commissions where I am actively involved in the production of the work, or in live event
series, improvisation and experimentation are integral to the practice. This would be to provide
the best support and flexibility to the artists involved, to optimize the experience for the visitors,
to best use resources, to raise ambitions and scope of the project, to be opportunistic.

P8

- Without question, you continually improvise and experiment. Its the nature of trying to

deliver a project by working with the artist, the constraints of a budget and the gallery space
68

itself- what is or not possible. Negotiation, improvisation and experimentation are all key factors
in delivering any exhibition.

P9

- I would hope so. My current research involves a large amount of experimentation and I

am sure improvisation as I try to work with and within a set community and group of people.
When working with people, both of these are important, as you are obviously not sure how
things are going to pan out. A need to have a plan B or feel comfortable in shifting things in case
the original idea does not work or needs modifying

P10

- To an extent yes I think experimentation is very important. I guess it is difficult for it

not to be. I am always thinking about how artwork is received and displayed. So I am always
trying to think through how exhibitions and institutions function. I think it is very important to
always be thinking through these questions to try and escape a normalised method of curating. I
have reservations with the idea of improvisation as I see it tied into troubling ideas of creativity
and genius.

P11

- Yes, all the time. Every project is very different, and I try to stretch myself to make sure

they are different. Sometimes its a festival, or a parade, or a street action, or a knitting
workshop. A fathers day or a walking museum. Why? Because I would get board with myself, if I
implemented always the same method.

P12

- Improvisation and experimentation are the founding principles of my practice.

Improvising is how we construct our daily routines, as well as conversations. It is a way around
comfortable references to theory, and an entry point into the field of possibilities, a way of
exploring new dimensions. In this sense, it is generative. It is also highly relational in that, as
mentioned above, it requires one to be attuned to a situation and its constituents and
stakeholders. I believe in developing a non-indexical curatorial practice, as I believe that through
the conversations held between myself and artists, engaging with issues and our work, we can,
through a free agonism rather than filtered institutional idioms, develop a relevant taxonomy,
leading to a relevant discourse, which allows us to focus our creative potential on an
outcome/process that is shaped by mechanisms distinct from those that comply with dominant
ideologies. Here, there is a level of self-organisation. An additional effect of this is that a situation
can be produced which allows a public to engage with the outcome through unexpected terms
neutral behaviours do not seem to fit. This method of course, is still quite experimental in its
nature I have so far tried out a few methodologies that I have developed.

P13

- Yes whilst I commence an exhibition with a living artist with a rigorous concept of

what the exhibition could be, I view curation as a form of collaboration and this can spur an
69

artist (and curator) into new directions. Therefore I am always happy to go on a journey with
the artists to realise work I actively encourage site visits and endeavour to do studio visits to
ensure the work responds to the specificity of our site and I have a sense of their working
methods.

P14

- Yes, my curatorial practice does involve methods of improvisation and

experimentation. Evolving a project with different parties often involves proposing an idea, then
developing it through dialogue and evolving understanding. It can also be dictated by
practicalities. Improvisation and experimentation is bespoke to each project. As some of the
works in the exhibition programme are new commissions and evolved over different periods of
time, the works develop also. Contemporary practice by nature involves improvisation and
experimentation.

P15/16

- We are constantly experimenting with the traditions of curating and presenting

new work. This is a very risky approach but potentially leads to a more interesting working
process and what we believe to be more meaningful outcomes.

6. Value
What do you believe is the value of your curatorial practice in creative,
cultural, economic, social and/or political terms? What are the values to you
personally?

P1

- I believe curators should be there to facilitate ideas and projects, an instigator for

getting things off the ground. I also think curators can set artistic discourse and shape how
contemporary art is seen. I see curators as editors who are able to display a work or an idea in
its best light thus pointedly communicating what the artists wants to get across.

P2

- I highly value my practice as a creative activity and believe it has a place culturally as a

way for myself and other emerging practitioners to explore this creativity. In turn, I think that all
cultural activity has positive economic, social and political value, no matter how public or
invisible. In terms of economic value, I have recently started taking my curatorial activity more
seriously work that I was previously doing for free I have started reducing and have been
watching the amount of time spent on curatorial activity compared to other employment
demands. I feel that this somehow has a direct link to the quality of work I produce obviously
the more time devoted to researching, developing and organizing projects, the more successful
that project will be to me (and hopefully to artists and audiences I am working with). I hope that
70

I have achieved a balance with my work in terms of the social and political value. I dont have
any plans or strategies for operating socially, economically or politically but I think its
important to be aware of operating within these areas and to respond honestly and with good
intentions

P3

- Hard questionI believe experimenting and taking risks is central to what I do and this

needs to happen, it is more difficult to do this in a bigger organization. So, I am happy to work in
the scale of organization I do. Big enough to get things done, small enough to be nimble and take
risks.

P4

- I dont think I can say what the value of my practice is to others, but I get a huge amount

from working with a range of artists, curators, writers and producers, and thinking about ideas
through art.

P5

- I hope that my projects are channels to raise awareness and provoke questions of

political and social issues, and a platform for artists to develop their own practice. Personally,
my practice is a means of allowing me to respond creatively to how I perceive the world. I think
that in todays environment where sources of authority that I used to hold on become irrelevant
and I am confronted with a myriad of contrasting views from different cultures, it has become
difficult to retain an understanding of what ideals I have, why I have them, and to articulate
them. I think that curating provides me with the emotional, intellectual and imaginative space to
ask what ideals I have and if they should matter.

P6

- I think thats for others to say not sure I can answer. Personally, a key value is the

creation of a zone for reflection, for the generational and dissemination of ideas diverse ideas
out with a market situation, where the experience is free (i.e. at no cost) and indefinite.

P7

- I think that I have had an impact on the local art scene, in supporting artists and other

arts facilitators, making a stronger, more supportive and organised community of artists and
galleries and increased the instance and possibility of us reaching outside of that within other
sectors of the community (both in terms of art community further afield and local non-arts
communities). I also think that my work has raised the ambition and profile / connectedness of
what we do. Part of my curatorial practice could be argued as taking part in advisory roles and in
mentoring younger curators/ arts workers / artists. In this my focus has been on quality,
fairness and criticality as well as sharing practical skills and advice, which I have built up /
continue to build up. The benefits to me are that I work in an environment where I get to think
about ideas, concepts and experiences for some of the time; that I find it rewarding to showcase
artists practices and see them develop.
71


P8

- My own practice overlaps all of the above.

P9

- Collaboration is important to my practice. I am interested in how art can have an

economic, social and political, as well as creative value. My practice involves an interest in the
idea of working within my local community/ neighbourhood, to see the artist, as a neighbour
and a valuable member of a community, whose skills and experiences can be used as tools
within his/her neighbourhood. I believe the role of art can be ameliorative and politicised but
this needs to be critiqued as well as practiced. The value to me personally is that curatorial
practice enables me to improve my knowledge and allows me to see different points of view and
belief through a level of critique.

P10

- Value I find to be a very difficult word because of how it has been taken over by a

process of neoliberalism that has reduced it to an idea of monetary value. I think the value of my
practice might be in an attempt to destabilize this idea and to attempt to disentangle culture
from this way of thinking.
P11

- I think art can make an impact on economic and social life, yes. But so can other things,

like sport, etc. What one should be after is a holistic view towards life. I am also interested in
politics and international working. I find that important; the international interaction between
people.

P12

- As mentioned above, in the production of any new discourse what is a problem to deal

with is how to mediate this. How can a public become a stakeholder in the work? One-way is to
conduct a performative curatorial practice, rather than illustrative. If a situation is produced (as
situation may be an exhibition, screening, talk, CD recording, publication etc. etc.) which
requires a viewer to improvise a non-standard interaction with a work, then a relationship
pertaining to the discourse would hopefully emerge. This is a way of distributing discourse,
through practice.
Again, this is all quite experimental, and currently being tried out! As for a wider social or
political value, I suppose my curatorial practice has very little bearing in reality I am currently
focused on expanding practices and asking questions, on a very small scale, and the distribution
of these works may be very limited. These are areas in which I hope to create a bigger impact.

P13

- The value to me personally is of course huge in all of the areas above. A city needs to

have an actively engaged Curator who cares about artistic production in the region but just as
importantly balances that with national and international positions so as to avoid being
parochial. Curatorially, I believe I am being ambitious with the calibre of artists I am inviting. I
72

am also choosing to put an emphasis on production in the local area to provide skilled work and
avoid shipping from a far, which assists all areas mentioned in the question.

P14

- The value of a curatorial approach that explores the creative, social, educational or

political nature of contemporary practice is it can investigate the ways that art can cross into
other spheres and have a relevancy. There is a tension that can be explored in these crossovers
that is so important when working, as these gaps or tensions mirror the reality of the world.

P15/16

- We are able to tap into archives and private collections of factories and

individuals to create a material, social and political context for our work, which we feel is
important to present to a public audience. The legacy of a project, in touring shows etc provides
a viable and sustainable proposition for us and our collaborators.

7. Sustainability of practice
How do you continue to do your practice?

P1 -

Currently I supplement my living whilst I carve out more projects and recognition as a

curator hopefully in turn leading to a sustainable living in the arts.

P2 -

I have teaching work and sometimes other bits and bobs such as cataloguing collections

and editing and proofreading. I work from home and work flexibly to make use of time and
opportunities that pop up. I have begun to save to finance future projects such as exhibitions as I
am freelance and dont have regular access to a venue. I do find that I need on-going support
such as catch-ups with fellow curators and artists for inspiration and feedback.

P3

- This is something, which keeps me awake at night, as I know we are reliant on Creative

Scotland for this.

P4

- I have a full-time paid position and undertake freelance (generally unpaid) work at

evenings and weekends. I received a Professional Development grant from the Scottish Arts
Council and to undertake a series of research trips. Projects emerge through on-going
conversation and discussion with others.

P5

- On a creative level, I sustain my practice by making room to think about encounters

with people/news/readings, my reactions to them, and seeking the right timing or occasion to
test out and speak to people about project ideas. If I look at your question from another
perspective, I think my practice has, in fact, been an important way for me to sustain my interest
73

in life. On the level of morale, I usually need some demonstrated enthusiasm by friends to help
me address any self-doubt, and to kick-off a project. My projects are very small in scale, and I
generally work with collaborators and artists who self-fund projects. I have obtained funding
from external sources for previous projects, though it only covers a portion of the production
expenses.

P6

- Travel to fuel knowledge and ideas by seeing more art.

P7

- I am in a paid job so have an approx. average wage for Scotland. It is at times difficult

for me to sustain the cerebral/ research part of my curatorial practice, as its not usually possible
to carry out the practical tasks demanded by my job within my contracted hours. I work on
writing and independent curatorial projects in evenings / weekends and the majority of my
reading and research is also done in non-office hours. I am constantly trying to develop more
efficient working methods to allow for more thinking within my working week.

P8

- Continue to be paid by my arts organisation

P9

- I am currently studying a PhD. This is a continuation of my research from my MA

Curating.

P10

- In a quite prosaic way. Earning enough to survive and giving me time and finances to

research and travel. I find the biggest problem however to be that there is a lack of space to
continue my practice in an embodied way.

P11

- I am paid by my organisation

P12

- I continue to do my practice in a wildly precarious and tentative manner I do it

without pay, and when I am not studying or working. I carry out my practice to the detriment of
having any spare time or sleep.

P13

- I am employed by a Creative Scotland Foundation Arts organisation with a reasonable

salary, a pension and a travel bursary. The organisation trusts me to deliver a programme that
my Director and our Board approve. That feels like sustainability of practice at a time of
economic uncertainty.

P14

- I have a full-time position. Working on the programme requires continuing engagement

with the context, audience and possibilities. I also have enjoyed when the opportunity has arisen
for other projects beyond where I have worked at the time.
74


P15/16

- We work very hard to get funding through projects and consultancy. Our

practice relies on many hours of unpaid work and effort.

8. Effect
When and how do you know when your curatorial projects are effective and
rewarding?

P1

- I know when we receive positive feedback from events we have conducted. I also get a

sense of feeling during the event if it is well received or not. I know internally if I think the
project was successful or not. At the moment any project I do is rewarding.

P2

- When I get feedback from the artist Ive worked with and the audiences Im hoping to

reach, but also when I self-evaluate. I usually set goals for each project, sometimes a project may
not need to be seen or have to achieve anything except be a part of a longer goal although the
realization of this can sometimes come quite a while after the project is long finished.

P3

- Usually the feedback, which means most, comes from people involved or close to the

project and peers. Also, feedback from audiences and participants. International respect is
something I feel is also core. However seeing peoples careers change after working with critical
recognition or us is also something I would look for.

P4

- It helps when the aims of the project have been articulated in advance, but mostly its to

do with developing a discussion with the participants of a project and being able to share this
progression with an audience.

P5

- When I realise that an assumption I had was wrong, when I undertake a change of

course, and when the outcome is something I would never have anticipated.

P6

- When the artists is happy, and audience arrive, commentary starts, discussions ensue

Personally they are always rewarding in one way or another, or sometimes many

P7

- When the artists have enjoyed the process and felt challenged and supported. When the

audience are excited / are asking questions / have been moved by the project.

P8

- blank

75

P9

- Difficult question. As I have an interest in working with communities and the public, it

would have to be the public response to the project. I feel this can sometimes be a problem with
socially engaged projects if the audience is only other artists, or friends, as I dont think it
reflects a true representation of the project.

P10

This is a very difficult question. For me a project starts to become effective when a sense

of discourse starts to arise or is augmented in some way. This is a very abstract idea and not
something that is easily quantified and something that I struggle with. I guess it is to be able to
generate discussions around my interests to try and further understand my position in the
world.

P11

- Well that is a hard one. One never should get complacent. One thing is if we get

interesting press, it does not have to be positive one. Then of course if the artist is happy, and
feels that the project was good and he/she got something out of it and feels like an ambassador
for us. And then the community: if they like it, if they discuss things, etc. The balance between
community and artistic innovation is vital. There is not one more important then the next.

P12

- Direct feedback has been very positive but I prefer moments where conversations

erupt around a project that point out either unasked or unanswered questions. I think I find the
process most rewarding before completion. Another experiment I would like to carry out is also
the production of systems of value, mechanisms of documentation and how to mediate these
along with articulations of success and failure, which are relevant to a self-organised discourse.

P13

I do look at peer review, visitor comments, visitor numbers, press, blogs etc. If I initiate a

project, then I am capable of self-review I know where aspects could have been improved
upon.

P14

- Feedback from those involved / Feedback from peers / Feedback from institution I

work with / for the project to be a catalyst that sparks off other connections beyond itself eg
practitioners working again down the line / personal satisfaction in the work achieved /
unexpected outcomes that work

P15/16

- So far we have received really positive peer feedback and now have the offer of

future work/projects.

76

And finally,
Do you agree with the following statements?


A Curator requires:


Summary


YES

A creative ability to interweave knowledge, experience and risk

A relentless work ethic (a way of life)

A instinct and ability to change outputs for precision and success

EQUAL AGREEMENT

A social and professional position in the field

A proven track record of successfully curated exhibitions / projects

NO

A historical and current knowledge and alliance with the field of power

A recognition in the field as one who curates

A position and location in the field where one curates

Results

A historical and current knowledge and alliance with the field of
power

YES 4

N0 10 (1 dont know)

Further comments:
P13

- someone who curates beyond one or two projects of course requires this.

P14

- The word alliance is an intriguing one. Many curatorial projects in institutions are

achieved in alliance or support by funders and other networks, so the curator requires to have a
current knowledge of funding if we class power as finance; it is part of the job for example to
see the opportunities such as funding and identify gaps in provision in order to mine lines of

77

enquiry. However as a curator the important alliance that holds the power is between the
artists and curators. It is their work that is the capital.

Recognition in the field as one who curates

YES 5

N0 10

Further comments:
P7

- I think it should be recognised as a professional practice, project by project, eg just

because an artist or writer has devised and curated 1 project it doesnt mean that they should
always have to be considered as someone who curates per se or that they could / would want to
curate other projects they should be free to carry on their practice as they see fit.
P13

- Someone who curates beyond one or two projects of course requires this. Not required

by a guest curator.
P14

- I find the emphasis on social standing in the next three questions multi-layered in

meaning. Globally the visibility of the curator has become more prominent in the last ten years,
often being a strap-line on marketing that is given as much prominence as the artists. There is
often even within organisations, interesting gray areas where curators promote themselves
above the organisation or even appear independent even though working for an institution. Do
you define independent curators as those working outside of institutions? From a more pastoral
point of view in any area of specialism there is accepted value in peer recognition.

A social and professional position in the field

YES 7

N0 8

Further comments:
P7

- I think its important for the work and value of the work of contemporary visual art

curators to be articulated and recognised better, this is because I think there is a chance that the
already fragile and un-standardised position could become more undermined
P13

- After a certain point.

P14

- I work with organisations and have a f/t position with an organisation so this is where I

predominantly practice. It is important for me to have a role in a community, I enjoy working

with others, and so a professional role works for me.

78

A proven track record of successfully curated exhibitions / projects

YES 7

N0 8

Further comments:
P2

- How is it proven and what is success and by whose measure?

P7

- In practical terms its useful to show your thinking processes and interests, however

broad, though a back catalogue of projects, but a successful curatorial project could also be build
on a one off genuine interaction, understanding and engagement.
P13

- Not necessarily to begin with but after a certain point

P14

- It would obviously be disastrous to have a track record of bad exhibitions but how do

we prove a good one? Footfall, press coverage, audience feedback, coming in on budget; mention
on Hot 100; good in your region?
P15/16

- though experience working on exhibitions/projects/events, assisting their

creation and production is vital

A position and location in the field where one curates

YES 5

N0 10

Further comments:
P7

- I think that in any successful project a level of knowledge and respect is needed. This

doesnt mean that years of knowledge need to be built up but there should be genuine,
respectful, multi-level engagement with the subject.
P13

- Some very good peripatetic curators with only one of the above.

P14

- An understanding and interaction with the context physical and demographic with

which you are working with.

A relentless work ethic (a way of life)

YES 11
N0 4

Further comments:
P7

- compared to some other friends and family my life / work are more enmeshed; eg my

socialising more likely to involved arts openings where I speak about current projects and ask
others about theirs as well as how their kids are getting on at school, my holidays are more likely
to involve visits to the city art gallery of that town / country, my bedtime reading more likely to
be related to a piece of writing Im working on. In practical terms, running a public programme
is often relentless
79

P11

- but others have that too, often arts people think they are the only ones, and I think that

is not the case)

P13

- I agree that I required this but equally I like the idea of an effortlessly talented curator.

P14

- this makes it sound not much fun to have a relentless work ethic but I would equate

curatorial practice as an expanded creative practice, probably as I came from having an artistic
practice. I therefore would say it is a way of life as it is tied in with identity.

A creative ability to interweave knowledge, experience and risk

YES 12
N0 3


A instinct and ability to change outputs for precision and success

YES 10
N0 4
(1 dont know)

Further comments:
P7

- Instinct is one of the resources that some curators use. An understanding that the

output of a contemporary visual art project is rarely fixed is an essential component feature that
curators need to be able to deal with. It means making a strong critical framework, which
doesnt rely on a specific physical outcome for its success.
P14

- More an ability to interact with the process. To change outputs sounds like only dealing

with the end products and I view it as my role as a curator in an educational institution to
uncover what occurs on the way.

Any others?

P1

- conviction in their actions and decisions.

P11

- Love, passion and endurance.

P13

- Self-belief, genuine connection but with a small amount of detachment

P14

- A sociable and curious disposition, A questioning mind, The ability to be preoccupied

with several subjects concurrently, Support, Organisational skills, An ability to communicate,

Good ideas

80

Appendix 2

Oak Trees and Fountains curated project, Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire

Show and Tell: The Making of Oak Trees and Fountains (2004)

The central concept of the project was to place site-specific contemporary artwork
within a heritage site in the North-East of Scotland. The artists who applied to take part were
also asked to let their idea/making process transparent so that the audience could not only look
at their artwork but also see how and why the artwork was researched, conceptualised,
developed, implemented and presented.

It was hoped that the audience to the site would therefore experience a clearer
understanding of the artwork by having the opportunity to access this process.

This project and concept came about for a number of reasons,

To build on the rural, non-urban contemporary art projects which have been developed
in the North-East over the past years.

To continue to make use of the number of astounding heritage sites in the area through
interaction with contemporary art, as they well out-number the usual contemporary art
white space.

To enable and develop the existing and new audiences for contemporary art

To enable contemporary artists to pursue an alternative context for their artwork and
give them the opportunity to show the audience their creative process.

To initiate and enable worthwhile and positive collaboration between the venue
organisation, local authorities, local institutions, funders, artists, curators and organisers.

While these reasons endeavour to make a conscience development of the artist, audience
and facilitator partnership, there was also an attempt to simply allow the participants to open
up, to show and tell and to hide nothing. A couple of useful analogies which I tend to use to
explain what I wanted this project to do for the audience is the Making of type documentaries
of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Generally shown on television days prior to the opening of
the movie. These programmes split the movie into pieces so that we all know how the visual
effects are achieved, what the problems are with the restrictive costumes and whether the cast
bonded in its making.

81

Also thinking about a general Design process might also give a good analogy to the
projects intentions. While working with a client the designer opens up a continuous dialogue
and so enables a client to buy into the decisions made in the outcome of the product. If they see
what is happening as it goes along the more likely that they can accept and understand the final
output. The thing is making art doesnt usually, in my experience, work like that

Perhaps the best way to understand this project, in the context of the research is to describe
the organisational process in a narrative manner. It is a story of emotion, commitment and
the unknown, as most projects tend to be for me, and I will comment from time to time with
a reflection of the scenario.

The project germinated as an idea that Lorraine Grant and myself developed in
September 2002, We had the skills, the knowledge, the connections, the motivation; we just
needed the money for the organising budget as well as the project site. The criterion was
determined (heritage site, contemporary artists, site-specific work, transparent process,
audience consideration). Calls and emails were made and a meeting was set up with The
National Trust of Scotland, in the Aberdeenshire Council offices in Inverurie. At this meeting it
was decided that we could access one of the NT properties in the North-East area to put on such
a project. Some of the venues were better for this than others, and after a few site visits, Drum
Castle was selected for its scale and variety of good external sites for artwork. Another meeting
was set up with the Manager of Drum Castle and NTS Education Officer, to fine tune the
possibilities. Everything seemed to be very acceptable, there wasnt anything, which might cause
any problems, we just needed to check with the Castles existing timetable of weddings, vintage
cars shows and seasonal activities so there wasnt some kind of cultural clash. It was also at this
point that the decision was made to extend the whole project over the National Trust open
season from May to October. Artwork would be rolled out over the year, in May, June, August
and September so building the project into full bloom through September.

This strategy was probably a good decision in respect that the artists had more time to
consider, research, develop and make their work, and encouraging multiple visits by the
audience to see the new work as the year went on. The artwork and the audiences visits
would also be experienced in different seasonal contexts, which was another important
development in the overall feel of the project.

Meanwhile, the organisation of funding applications and selecting and contracting the
appropriate artists continued. A major criterion for the project to go ahead with the four
selected artists was the positive funding decision by the Scottish Arts Council. We planned that
we could still put on a one-artist project for a short time, from the funding dedicated by
82

Aberdeenshire Council, but we wanted to do the whole thing and by January 2004 we finally
knew that we had this funding. Therefore, artists could be paid, artworks could be designed and
made, interpretation material could be designed and printed and this publication could be
produced.

The publicly available interpretation for the project took the form of four free-to-take
individual artists pamphlets that could be picked up in the main house and a specially
constructed display of artists research material housed in the Old Laundry. Each artist supplied
material that was arranged by myself on four freestanding wooden notice boards. This material
consisted of various research photographs, website print outs, sketches, artwork mock ups,
previous catalogues, site visit photos, measured drawings, pamphlets, maps, books, photo
collages and poems. Along with these artist boards were two boards that displayed the
organisational and audience responses to the project. These included a timeline poster, files of
emails, funding applications, installation of artwork photos, previous exhibition catalogues, full
transcripts of artists interviews that were edited and used in the free pamphlets, world map
which the audience could pin their home location on and audience question cards which were
completed and pinned up.

With the money for the complete project more or less in place, the artists were then
asked to develop their research into a formal proposal and output. David Blyths project was
moved back from April to open on May 1st to give us all enough time to prepare and complete the
organisation, marketing and the production of the interpretation and artwork. Blyths project
required the production of 5 specially designed booths that had to be made onsite and then
manhandled into the Old Oak woods of Drum and sited beside a specific tree. Once the booths
were in place the glass sides were installed and listening box technology was linked up to a
number of microphones that were fixed high up in the branches of the individual trees holly,
oak, birch, beech and cherry - by a very versatile artist who climbed into the trees to install
them. On the opening few days, Blyth was then photographed for the local Deeside Piper
newspaper and interviewed on Radio Scotland for a programme early on the Saturday morning
about the great Scottish outdoors

Blyth used every minute in refining the concept and manufacturing the artwork in the lead
up time to the public. The first launch of the project went well but with limited press
coverage, which never really manifested throughout the project, despite our persistence.
The initial opening was an event; it was the acknowledgement of the existence of the
project. It was a time to make a mark and get people interested. Although the project was
open for 6 months we never gained any further press interest.

83

Since four works were being installed at different times during the year, we also had four
openings for the artists and artworks, to welcome them onto the site and project. The Old
Laundry was used as a location for the refreshments and general get-together of the people
involved and invited friends. These were informal but much needed to launch the work.

Once the Scottish Arts Council project grant money had been secured, Victoria Bernie,
who was the last artist in the series, was an early site visitor in late January and was quickly
clued up with minutiae research into the Drum site history, architectural detail and the
horticultural and gardening history and culture of such sites in Scotland. Bernie had already
been out in the field filming a number of various selected sites for her potential work. During
this time she also had an exhibition at the Bonhoga Gallery in Shetland and while she was there
was documenting the landscape and vegetation which might be used in her work.

Meanwhile, the two other artists Janice McNab and Jim Harold were individually
proceeding with their own concepts for their work in their studios but site visits were needed to
give them a full awareness of the context, potentials and restrictions for their ideas. McNab
arrived in February where she spent a couple of days on site photographing the house, whose
contents were still under covers as protection during the winter closure and talking to the staff
and getting a general feel of the place. The house was always going to be the site to show her
work but as time and ideas advanced she eventually had to revisit during May to enable a full
understanding of the context. McNab initially decided on making paintings that would hang as a
replacement for some of the paintings that were already in the house. As time went on
discussions about the potential work required consideration of a number of issues relating to
removing the house works, storage and insurance and fixtures into the surface of the walls. This
produced too many logistical problems and the initial concept of McNab's work required some
revision in light of the context that she wanted to show her work. After much consideration a
suite of seven small-framed oil on paper works were made, and these would be positioned
throughout the house on tables, mantelpieces, windowsills and sideboards.

In reflection the scheme that was finally decided on used the context and conditions of the
site extremely well and produced a very interesting work that required the Drum Castle
volunteer guides to be directly familiar with the work, unlike the other artwork in the
project, as they informed the public in their daily tours. So the artwork really did infiltrate
the site, they werent obvious and had to be looked for or pointed out.

Jim Harold came for his initial site visit on the first opening in May. The Walled Garden
site had been already chosen even before visiting. His interests in gardens and culture made the
walled rose garden the perfect quiet reflective location. We discussed various schemes and
84

ambitions from glass walls and neon to text based installations. Production skills, available
money and time became an important factor in these ambitions so Harold went off with reality
in mind to consider what to do.

Harolds work was launched in August, after an intensive couple of weeks of decision-
making and artwork production. His damask rose pink wall was built on site to fit the gardeners
bothy while it rained and all the roses were gradually disappearing from the garden. Paint and
lettering was applied for completion. The freestanding boards that had been constructed in
Glasgow and driven up were positioned on the launch day. It all fitted and was sited perfectly,
perfectly designed. The Harold launch was maybe a low-key affair but didnt matter, a local
Indian restaurateur that Harold had been frequenting while working on site turned up with
colleagues and made the day.

At this time, there were 3 works on site and heading through summer and prime tourist-
time in Scotland, the project was settling down and the artwork was coasting along,
nothing was broken, or stolen, and the interpretation was working well. In the Old laundry
the pin boards were being used and lots of the audience cards were being completed and
posted. The world map was filling up with pins all over Britain and Europe but also a
number of good folks from the US, Australia, and the Far East.

In late September Victoria Bernie was on site again for a couple of days to install her
projected digital film work. I had previously gone down to Edinburgh to interview her for the
interpretation pamphlet material, at her WASPS studio beside Easter Road football stadium. The
interview lasted over two hours, but a very illustrative, concise and humorous amount of
information very produced, after the interview we went and had a great lunch in the Vittoria
caf on Leith Walk. Before the installation on site at Drum, Bernie had already produced and
constructed her Memoirs of a Beekeeper film that was edited onto a continuously playing DVD.
A mock-up of the screen and projection equipment was made and therefore calculations,
measurements and light levels could be assessed to ensure a fully designed projected image of a
particular size and intensity. So once the time came to install, it all fitted together perfectly and
no need for last minute unforeseen alterations. The artwork was the projected image but the
means to achieve this such as the screen, LED projector, beautifully designed and made security
and ventilated plywood box for the projector was also a highly important detail in the success of
the work.

In reflection, Bernies attention to detail in the production of her work created a simple
levitating luscious image in the Brew House basement of Drum Castle. Bernie not only
made great use of her attention to detail skills but also created a friendly, helpful and
85

accommodating relationship with the head gardener and housekeeper at the Castle, which
also led to achieving a complete project. It was important to develop these working
relationships in the production of the project in this context.

As the main National Trust season was starting to end during September, McNab's work
was no longer on public view from October as the main house was closed to the public. The
gardens started to wind down but the other 3 works and the interpretation material were still in
place until the end of October. During this end period, I took a new group of MA students from
Grays on a visit to the project, although it rained heavily, it was a very useful experience and
discussion about contemporary art in such a context.

The closure was a muted affair as nature was readily taking control and Blyths wooden
booths needed to be removed from the wood or it would become to dangerous to physically
remove them due to mud and slimy tree bark, we hired a van and removed the structures;
McNabs works had already been dismantled and bubble packed up and stored by the Drum staff
and returned to the artist; Harolds work, after being dismantled, found its way back to my
garage for storage and Bernie came up from Edinburgh to remove her work and equipment for
future use. So by early November it was all over apart from some of Blyths microphones that
had to remain in the trees all winter until it was safe in spring to climb the trees again.

The project at this point was physically over and the public couldnt visit Drum and
experience the artwork but I have continued discussing the whole project and experience in
a vast number of recent teaching and learning opportunities. I have personally included it
in my under and postgraduate teaching at Grays. In UG contextual studies, stages 1, 2 and
3 were given lectures and seminars, which included reference to the project and its
production. Lorraine and myself were also asked to present a talk about the project to the
Engage Scotland conference in Glasgow, relating to public art and also in another
workshop breakout session at an Engage conference at Duff House, Banff in relation to
interpretation and access. These were highly beneficial to reflect and dismantle the project
and debate what had actually happened.

Students who had visited the project on site were aware of the physical context and could
appreciate the artwork and why it therefore existed but some others who had not seen the
work were concerned by the compromises, which had to be taken into account in the siting
and production of the work. Students who had experienced the project thought the works
were successful in the context and that the reality of the situation had produced more
interesting works.

86

There was a strong opinion from public, students and associated professionals that these
projects are very good vehicles to encounter contemporary art. The general public had no
problems with the background information being available, this display gave the project
another additional layer, the audience responded positively about the effect and usefulness
of this material. Interestingly as far as could be perceived from the audience information
the majority thought that the display improved their understanding and interpretation of
the artwork produced, they enjoyed being able to access the background information made
available and they readily answered questions about themselves and their interests, desires
and passions and also opening up to the other audience members.

The selected artists who took part were obviously already on-board, and in reflection stated
that

The facility of the laundry provided me with an interesting interface with which to engage
the public further with regards to the development and progression of my work at Drum. I
felt it was of use to me, as an artist, as it allowed my audience the opportunity to see my
workings and decision making with greater immediacy and so enter into my thought
process with ease.

This is good as it encourages interesting relevant discussion with the public audience. The
laundry also served to give the audience an insight into the work that perhaps only a studio
visit might achieve. Perhaps the laundry tried to do this only in reverse - it brought the
studio (the working/ thinking done here) to the people.

In reflection the success (and its sustainability) of this type of contemporary art project
could be due to its naturally multi-layered production structure. Perhaps it just seems enough to
make it happen, to gather together some like minded organisers and practitioners with enough
motivation and just enough life energy to bring their skills together. To try and control all the
layers is a job that needs to be done but is maybe foolhardy. An interesting project also needs
the unforeseen to happen and so create a successful and relevant project that isnt over-
designed. During its production and evolution it encounters change, compromise and plate
spinning, making the possibility of one falling off and making a serendipitous occurrence
happen.

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

Oak Trees and Fountains archive image/design credits

Stuart Johnstone p. 90 94, 98 103, 105, 114, 115, 118 - 120
Sunil Vishin p. 95/96, 111/112, 116/117
David Blyth p. 95
Jim Harold p. 106 111
Victoria Clare Bernie p. 116
Texts and images by kind permission of the authors, artists, photographers and The National
Trust for Scotland.

120

Appendix 3

Where is curating if it is not in the Institution?
DART Seminar, Grays School of Art, Aberdeen

Research paper and DVD



2%: Where is curating if its not in the Institution?

Iain Irving, May 2012


Abstract
This paper focuses on the definition of the essence of curating by analysing the ideas of
the curatorial. It is an attempt to determine what and where this occurs in the process of
curating, perhaps even before curating. It is illustrated by examples of curatorial practice
outwith the institution and also considers the curatorial metaphors and concepts discussed and
employed by others that might shape our understanding of this idea.

The 2%, as stated by exhibition organiser Paul Nesbitt (Nesbitt 2009) is the essence of
curating. We can describe and assess the 98% as being the things that make it all happen; the
121

accidental properties, the pragmatics, but the intension here is to consider and maybe capture
this 2%.

image ref. author 2012

Maybe to start to understand this essence we need to retreat from the sharp end, from
the most obvious and standard definition of curating. This being within the institution and the
construction of a theme, genre or scenario, which is illustrated with images and objects placed
within an institution. By retreating, backing out of the doors, we enter a public everyday world,
and therefore the context is different, values are different, what people see and experience is
very different. Here we can identify existing scenarios where things are connected
intentionally or unintentionally. Also, within our own mind there is a virtual or imaginative
spatial place where the practice of curating can also exist. Here there are no physical restrictions
therefore the imagination can be just that - no barriers and no restrictions apart from your own
personal limitations. Curating has sometimes been called managing knowledge or taking care
of things but still this comes to the doing of the activity which leaves the being as something
where the essence of curating could exist.
Within the safe context of the museum and art institution the traditional curator is at
home. Working with a collection and a knowledgeable amount of information with the
consecrated items, they can weave and knit, enhancing each piece in conjunction with others
that they care to connect with. But this is where the habitual image of the curator comes from,
and in recent history certain curators (and people who curate) have questioned and challenged
these traditions.

122


Following on from his apparent brutal curating experience of the 1972 Documenta 5,
exhibition in Kassel, Germany, Harold Szeemann withdrew for a short time and invented the
Museum of Obsessions, which he said only existed in his head. He determined it to be a kind of
speculative place to release our primal and positive unit of energy that is the source of our
creative individuality and the catalyst of intensive intentions, those individual energies of
obsession that create our own intellectual and sensorial worlds.

image ref. SZEEMANN ARCHIVE/BALTHASAR, B., 2006. Grandfather, A Pioneers Like Us In: MLLER H-J., 2006. Harald
Szeemann: Exhibition Maker, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. p. 54.

123

Although at this time he continued curating by producing the actual exhibition, Grandfather, A
Pioneer Like Us (exhibited only in his apartment in Bern, 1974) it is important to note that the
curator is seen to identify new approaches in curatorial practice for it to be a meaningful
experience for all those involved. This necessity (after the stress and management of a major art
event, perhaps) for a new approach to curating, as a space of imagination, is also important to
acknowledge. Szeemanns experience of Documenta was mixed, after the excessively public,
only the opposite seemed possible: the exhibition as a representation of intimate matters,
thereby regaining a dimension (Obrist 2008). This scenario could be accused of creating a
proto-institution, just constructing the problem somewhere else, but in Szeemanns practice this
was a crucial moment where the curator looked for a more individual process and consciously
avoided the traditional expectations and methodologies of curating.

Another example to consider of the curatorial extending the distance from conventional
exhibition is Seth Siegelaubs catalogue exhibitions. These were a number of self-published
exhibitions produced by Siegelaub who is credited as the editor.
The first, being a solo exhibition by Douglas Huebler in a private New York apartment in
November 1968. Following this there was a Lawrence Weiner book as an exhibition and a group
show in December 1968. This project, called the Xerox book, although Siegelaub did not
encourage the title, entailed the curator requesting each of the selected artists to propose an
artwork for the exhibition. Knowing that there would be no physical production or showing of
124

the artwork, the proposals were mainly textual, which were either statements or instructions for
the hypothetical artwork. Again the purpose of this project and subsequent exhibitions can be
seen as an extension and loosening of the boundaries of the institutional rules for curated
creative and imaginary possibilities. Perhaps a consequence of the questioning anti-
establishment nature of the times, but subsequently was an important model to support a
continuing challenge of the institutional power field.

Hans Ulrich Obrist in his recent keynote presentations continues to venture back to his
curatorial beginnings with the much-covered story of the exhibition in his kitchen in St Gallen,
Switzerland 1992.

125



image ref. PARKETT 1992. Pages from Parkett: A Kitchen Exhibition in St. Gallen. Parkett, Zurich, Vol.31. p. 146-147

Here he started to curate outwith the institution, was this a challenge to the institution
or a portfolio example of his creativity and innovation of where the curatorial could also exist?
This humble beginning (as many others have had using their domestic spaces for exhibitions has
led to many other curatorial ideas and real exhibitions, but its important here to acknowledge
the need for this experimentation of ideas, which dont manifest themselves in a traditional
public exhibition. Obrists work also includes a book of complied proposals of art projects which
didnt physically happen, although in fact they have, in the imaginations of the artists and in the
pages of the Unbuilt Roads: 107 Unrealised Projects book and in a recent open call through e-
flux.com to gather artistic unrealised projects (of which there were many) and which gathered
together these ideas so that the viewer can see them.

Identifying and analysing curated exhibitions that didnt exist may help, where the non-
physical is another way into the essence of curating. Construction of a hypothetical scene, going
against what is the familiar model and format of the curated item takes us out of the physical
institutional space, into another space, which is the space of human imagination. Here the
curator can construct any format, nothing is wrong. All things are possible, as much as your
imagination can take it. This is the moment of joy for the curator; there are no restrictions or any
need to problem solve.

126



Hypothetical curating requires some discussion and identification. As a curator of an
institution, you have your space, its the vessel, the four walls that you know intimately, and this
is your canvas. Therefore your imagination is already restricted, it has parameters, and there is a
field of activity, but this still needs to be filled in whatever way for the curation to exist.

image ref. BAYER, H., 1930. Diagram of extended vision in exhibition presentation. In: DORNER, A., 1947. The Way
Beyond Art, New York, Wittenborn, Schultz Inc , p199.

127

This is also a place that the artist can see, to be creative and construct their ideas and their
format. The audience also have a place to go, a location to travel to, to enter and physically
interact with. There is also the time of the physical exhibition, in contemporary spaces a matter
of weeks or even in museums there is a time frame. Even after a number of years there is the
need to refresh the display fundamentally to remarket the collection and gain new visitors and
attendance. Therefore the physical space is important for the institution and its curator, its a
powerful container, like any other space of experience or commerce, it has its location which the
audience get to know and will visit if the artist/marketing interests them.

To not have a physical space can cause problems. What we are doing here is all agreeing
that the spaces, which display exhibitions, are the places and spaces were they exist, and
therefore not anywhere else. We have created this chain of consecrated spaces that are the
places to see Art. If this is the case, then where does curating exist outwith these institutions and
spaces?

Is curating for no space actually curating? Curating for a space is the 98% of the activity,
it is the everything else that needs to be done. Therefore by taking away the reasons for the
98% we should be left with the 2%. Get rid of the physical space, but still consider a location; get
rid of the dictated scales (weight, size, time, costs) but still consider the ultimate dimensions; get
rid of the authorship and ownership, everything is free, you can have anything, any artwork,
commodity, experience, there is no containment. Like the universe, your mind and imagination
has no barriers. It can go wherever you want it to, and noticing things as you go. Making
connections and links, maybe only for a moment some being more exciting or significant than
others but to do this perhaps is to begin the practice of curating.

The context of the contemporary artworld comes with its limits and gatekeepers,
therefore to only curate in this way would be interesting but nave. There is a taking care of
business required, so perhaps we need to venture outside of this context to try to get closer to a
definition of the 2% by way of analysis of the curatorial.

Before moving on there is something to be said about the use of metaphors in discussing
curating and the curator. As we know the metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term or
phrase is applied to something which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a
resemblance. This use of metaphor helps in not only describing things but also encourages us to
believe that the practice can become the other. Schn discusses the notion of the generative
metaphor, which is an interpretive tool for the critical analysis of a practice (Schn 1993 p. 138).
Conceptual metaphors as discussed by Lakoff and Johnson (1990) are from our everyday
128

language. These metaphors influence the way we communicate, but they also affect and form the
way we see and do things. They help us in the journey to understand the practice.

De Certau also usefully states, In Modern Athens the vehicles of mass transportation are
called metaphorai. To go to work or come home one takes a metaphor` they traverse and
organize places; they select and link them together; they make sentences and itineraries out of
them (De Certau1994 p. 115).

Metaphors are then spacial trajectories. To use the metaphor to explain curating seems
natural, it is appropriate to the practice and its methods. Therefore when referring to the
curator as a trickster (Czegledy 2002), middleman (Andreasen and Bang Larsen 2007),
flneur/activist (Kowalski 2010) or indeed as politician, talker, publicist, conversationist,
speaker, translator etc, or curating as smuggling or the curatorial as a gift, it conjures up and
determines a chosen interpretation, which implies that we need to consider this other as the
way not only to understand what curating is but how it is done. The metaphors chosen are then
not just useful, colourful adjectives. With their use they can create a thinking method of and for
the practice, they have the power and persuasion to alter our understanding as well as produce
new interpretations of the practice.

129



image ref. ANONYMOUS. 1900 Schichtl's Marionetten, Varit = Theater postcard. Available from:
http://www.galerie123.com/original-vintage-poster/117/schichtl-s-marionetten-variete-theater

The use of the particular metaphors mentioned to identify curating, has in fact made it
more mysterious and related to subversion therefore shaping the way that the practice might be
carried out.

Lewis Hyde writes about the creation of a work of art as a gift (Hyde 2006 p. xiv). The
gift is the creativity, the talent, the ability of us in its production, but could the item that is
produced also be a gift whether it is a virtual or physical output or is this making the item, as a
material thing more important that it actually is. The gift is contained within the item, so if it is
given to you it is identified and felt, but the external receiver would need to be willing and able
to identify the gift if they are offered it.

Jean-Paul Martinon proposes the curatorial as a gift; by stating the curatorial is
[therefore] this first gift, a gift before the subject/object or curator/viewer relation, prior to any
contractual determination. In this way, and before any proper curating has taken place, the
curatorial first establishes itself as gift structured by a radical law without which no opening of
thought and therefore no gift as parcel would be possible (Martinon 2012 p. 1). Therefore the
fact of producing this ordinary or everyday gift is free-spirited and wonderful, it has all the logic
of a fantasy, it can be anything it wants to be, but ultimately it still needs a presence to be
experienced. How can we then see this presence if it is so private and so ordinary?

130


In astronomy a new planet is identified by the effect it has on other things, the
gravitational forces that wobble neighbouring stars, it cannot be seen in itself. The knock on
effect of its presence makes it exist so then the scientist may identify it.

image ref. Artist's rendering of Kepler 22b NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech.

Perhaps in curating this is one way to see the presence. An essence of curating is not
managing but being disruptive, wobbling what is around it. It is a dull and dead thing if it has
logic and is too calculated and careful, it needs to be a disruptive embodiment against received
131

knowledge (Martinon 2012 p. 1). But this disruptive nature is required to sustain any creative
practice, as an expected anti-dote to the current creativity, thinking and outcomes. So this
returns us to consider that the curatorials element is that of a creative destructor.

So maybe the curating is doing and the curatorial is being. At this stage it helps to
identify and discuss other recent proposals on the essence of curating.

Irit Rogoff invokes the notion of 'smuggling' in relation to the curatorial (Rogoff 2006)
For her, she states that smuggling is an extremely potent model through which to track the
flights of knowledge, of materials, of visibility and of partiality and so making dynamic
movements essential for the conceptualisation of new cultural practices. In envisioning the
unbounded Rogoff is enabling a situation that is limitless, even anarchic. The mapping of an
activity must have a boundary, but maps are a political contrivance, which have been negotiated
as well as claimed, whether you have the rights or not, so to be unbounded needs an agent who
works and is creative with these conditions, perhaps the curator. Smuggling is proposed as an
operational device which allows us to bring our speculations concerning global circulations,
cultural difference, translations, legitimacies, secure inhabitation, visibility and the queering of
identity into play as they circle and hopefully produce smuggling as a new subject in the world
(Rogoff 2006) The activity is clandestine in nature and could be seen as a passage of contraband
(knowledge, experience, ideas, creativity even items) working out with the normal routes of
trade. This term makes sense with the activity of independence, as it has an attitude of knowing
and skill in survival but looks for the gaps in the system to take advantage of in making new
meanings.

This concept can be clearly seen in the creation of a curated idea, where in the very
initial stages, before any pragmatics or management occurs, there are no limits, no boundaries,
Although smuggling also has the connotation of the illegal, breaking laws for profit as well as
also for good, as in removing knowledge, items or people from conflict to a secure place. But
primarily this concept of smuggling helps to consider how the curatorial has no boundaries of
the imagination and creativity.

The smuggler also sees the surplus to take advantage of and hence cause further
disruption. If the curatorial lives best in the unbounded then what happens when a horizon of
some sort is reached, the fullness is complete. Jean Paul Martinon proposes, The curatorial
disrupts by heightening the limits, the lines or the horizons. In other words it plays at making
the fullness (or surplus) unbearably fuller (Martinon 2012 p. 3). This fullness can only be
combated by the imaginary because the imaginary is the only thing that can never be drawn
with any certainty or confined by a discipline or practice (Martinon 2012 p. 4). Here Martinon is
132

declaring that this is where the curatorial fights for the creative practice/person to see no limits,
as the imaginary is like the cosmos where there are only extremes and no compass.

In conclusion then, perhaps the essence of curating is a cryptid, we know it is there but we cant
see it. We can identify it, like the new planet from the things that we can see and experience - it
is there or the 98% that is the everything else that needs to be done wouldnt exist. It is also
clear that we will continue to identify and have influence on the practice through metaphors to
discuss and articulate what we mean and what it means to us - a curated metaphor identifies
curating.














image ref. author 2012
133

References to paper

Andreasen, S and Bang Larsen, L. (2007). The Middleman: Beginning to talk about mediation, in
ONeill, P. ed. Curating Subjects, London: Open Editions.
Czegledy, N, The Myth and Mischief Maker, in Thomas, Catherine, ed. (2002) The Edge of
Everything: Reflections on Curatorial Practice. Banff, Alberta: The Banff Centre Press.
De Certau M, trans Rendall S.F, (1984) The Practice of everyday life, Berkeley and Los Angeles,
University of California Press.
Hyde L. (2006) The Gift, Edinburgh: Cannongate Ltd.
Kowalski, MJ. (2010). The Curatorial Muse, London: Contemporary Aesthetics. Available from:
http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=585
Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Martinon J P. (2012) Theses in the Philosophy of Curating, London: I.B.Tauris. Available from:
http://www.jeanpaulmartinon.net/Site/Books.html
Nesbitt P. Exhibition Organiser at Inverleith House, Edinburgh. Personal communication. 2009.
April 7. Note: Paul Nesbitt stated in our conversation that he does not see himself as a curator;
he assists the artists to make the projects and exhibitions for the gallery. His job is 98%
organising (fundraising, lending work, negotiating the works, preparing the gallery, marketing
and designing and writing interpretation and publications) and 2% curating (idea of project in
relation to space, context, location).
Obrist, H.U., (2008). A Brief History of Curating. Dijon, Les Presses du Reel.
Rogoff, I., (2006). Smuggling - An Embodied Criticality. Available from:
http://transform.eipcp.net
Schn D. A., In: Ortony A, editor. (1993). Metaphor and thought. revised ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.


The inserted photographs and short texts were used in the presentation as contextual -
metaphorical images to the text.

134














































135












The village curator sat down and reflected on the day.


He thought about the discussion at the office drop in session in the morning which had seemed to help a few
of the locals with their networking issues of connecting up their craft group to new members. He had given them
advice about sharing resources and demonstrators with other similar groups through their micro sites and posters.
He also thought about the weekly ecology group coming in energised at lunchtime after their walking trip down to the
Harbour and beach. Earlier they had made their way along the bay picking up any materials or items they found
polystyrene, wood, plastic panels, shoes, rope. The group had then continued to climb across the rocks towards the
island. But getting there was always difficult but luckily they were able to get to it by a path, which appeared when the
tide was out. Once there they had organised a spontaneous exhibition of the items found. Things were categorized in
form, material and colour, arranged on the rocks and photographs were taken. Once back in the cabin one of the group
downloaded and processed the exhibition images on to the curators online exhibition space.

Later in the afternoon he had held a seminar online for his course in Sociocultural Positioning in Curating:
Exploring Culture, Discourse, Narrative & Power. This six-week course had students from down the road and the
other side of the world making a creative global interaction from a simple wooden office.

At the end of the day, the village curator then tidied up the teacups and milk, stacked the magazines, journals
and books back on their shelves, closed down the word processing and internet social networking applications and
switched off the computer.

(Irving I 2011 p. 14/19)




Continues

136